The Dimensional Traveler: Volume 3
by GREKy the GREK
Summary: The siege of Planeptune is just a beginning of something, which is going to shake the whole continent. Will CPUs and Michael Runcorn succeed to defend the world from forces plotting against them? Gamindustri's fate will depend on their actions, their old acquittances and decisions of people, who like Michael, also come from other dimensions (Info about updates in profile note)
1. Chapter 1 Hunters' pact

**Chapter 1. Hunters' pact**

A cooling breeze blew at my face as I stood on the walls of Planeptune City.  
"We were victorious…" I recalled the battle. Though it was fierce, its outcome was obvious from the very beginning – forces which attempted to siege the capital had been successfully annihilated, however, I didn't feel anything from this accomplishment. The void in my heart was growing, but I slowly began to adapt to the new me. Parts of V and Michael Runcorn melted into this form which was hard to define even for myself. Whom I was? A human or something else? Although I didn't know that yet, discovering it wasn't a pressing matter. Since I agreed with Purple Heart that my existence should be named Michael V Runcorn the truth could wait to be revealed.

"Oh, there you are." I heard Christopher Sparrow's voice from the side. His tone and expression were same as before, like if nothing happened at all. Perhaps we were quite similar, both drained out of emotions, deeply scarred for the rest of our lives. More to that, I wouldn't be surprised if like me, he was hiding something from the others, but even though I couldn't even guess his secret yet, I was sure he was a powerful ally I might need.  
"Yes. Is there anything you need me for?" I asked without averting my gaze from remains of the battlefield.  
"Not really. I only wanted to talk to you." Christopher stopped next to me and looked over in the same direction.  
"About what?" I inquired for further details. After a moment of silence, he opened his mouth again.  
"Thanks for the help. If it wasn't for you, I'd not be able to reach this town." More concerned about own agenda than well-being of inhabitants of Planeptune? I wasn't going to judge, so hiding a small smirk on my face, I let him finish his piece. "You're local, aren't you? You were with these goddesses back then."  
"No. Nonetheless, I'm still familiar with this area."  
"I see. Then I guess, being honest with you won't hurt. I'm looking for someone and not gonna lie, I'm rather very lost…" Sparrow let out a troubled chuckle and touching his chin, continued. "A guy called Michael Runcorn. He's supposed to be somewhere in Planeptune City and according to the map, we're in it now. I know it's not much, but that's all I have, so…"

Another one, huh? Funny as if we were to meet a bit earlier than that, we would have shared this objective. Although his search wouldn't end in such an ironical way like mine, I wasn't going to inform him of my identity right away.  
"Why?" I demanded coldly. I would have been a fool not to try to find out his goal. Of course, there was still a possibility he would lie, however, if that was the case, I should be aware of it.  
"Well… Umm… It might be hard to believe, but I think I was thrown into another dimension… Please, don't say I'm crazy! It's just so many things are different. Bizarre monsters, robots, goddesses… Holy fuck, dude, there's even magic here. Am I tripping or what?" He anxiously put his hands on his hat and then, seeing that I remained silent, he added. "And there was that man, a freaking Agent Smith, I tell ya. He gave me some equipment for the journey, saying to look for this fella as apparently, we're in the same situation. Geez, I'm so confused…" Agent Smith? I didn't have all of the memories of my past life, however, even with that I caught this reference.  
"Okay. By the way, I forgot to introduce…" As I had a good basis for that, I decided to trust him, though before I finished, he freaked out.  
"You actually believed that fast?!" He stared at me in a shock with his hands on his head.  
"Yes. Why not?"  
"Are you insane or are you making fun of me? Even with a straight face?!" I didn't understand his problem. We were having a serious conversation, so why should I express unnecessary emotions? Of course, I could imitate some to his preference, although they wouldn't be genuine, thus, redundant.  
"Most likely because I went through the same. It's a long story which still holds many mysteries even from my perspective. Anyway, before you interrupt me again, I'm the one you seek. Michael V Runcorn."  
"What? For real? You aren't kidding me?" Christopher Sparrow's jaw dropped. In response, I confirmed it with a quick nod. "Oh, man… I guess, I'm super-duper lucky. So, do you know how to go back home?" He asked stupidly.  
"If I had that knowledge, would I remain in this world? I used to be a normal person before this world turned me into what you see." Well, if it wasn't for that transformation, I would go back once a first opportunity would present itself. Currently, I was closer to Gamindustri, so I would have had a hard time to readapt to a peaceful and boring universe such as the one I was born in. Here at least, I felt more natural with my skills.  
"Fair point. That sucks… There's something I must finish where I come from, so I will have to look for a way out on my own. Still, thanks. I appreciate it." He raised his hat, revealing his medium-long black hair and then, he turned around.  
"Where are you going?" Though it wasn't my business, I prevented him from going.  
"As I said, I'm going home." I could see how determined he was. Whatever awaited him there, it must have been something very important.  
"You didn't even know about the CPUs, so how are you going to survive alone? Not all obstacles can be removed by the brute force of bullets." I was convinced that alone, he would have died on the first encounter with a hostile magic user or a beast with high enough psychical resistance. Though I could see he wasn't a complete moron he purposefully pretended to be, even that wasn't guaranteeing survival. If it wasn't for CPU Purple Heart, I could have passed away quite early in the game as well, so I felt obliged to at least attempt to reason with him.

"I've always dealt with anything and anyone on my path and that's not going to change in this world. Sorry, but I have to hurry." Christopher refused to listen. Luckily for him, however, I was still in a possession of one more argument which might interest him.  
"Didn't you say you are an Ultimate Hunter? What if I told you that staying for a bit would give you a one in the lifetime opportunity to hunt down a vampire?" He was proud of his vocation, or at least I deducted as much, therefore, I wasn't surprised to see him freeze.  
"…A vampire?" He mumbled under his nose, waging his options. Alright, time for the final push.  
"Join me temporarily to take care of it and in exchange, I will make sure to discover a method to return you to your original dimension. Though I don't know when, I can promise it on my life." Eventually I was going to research that anyway, so technically, I didn't lie, but was purposefully vague.  
Upon hearing that, Sparrow hesitated. Whatever he would decide, it had to be entirely his choice as I didn't intend to keep him here by force. Though given the circumstances, this man would have been useful to me, there was no reason to interfere with his life if he wanted to risk it that badly.  
"For real…?" Deep in thoughts, the hunter lowered his eyes.  
"Yes. I may only guess how many of them lurk around, but I believe two is the minimum, while one has already been identified. There hadn't been much suspicious incidents, so I'm positive their numbers are still considerably low." Traceable was only the case from two days ago, however, I wasn't going to jump to any conclusions as of yet.  
"Do you have any actual proof?" His voice grew serious.  
"I do. I secured a 'living' specimen… I can show it to you, if you're in." For a second I noticed his sight becoming razor sharp, but that could have been just a reflex of the light as his eyes quickly returned to their usual state of dreaminess, when he spoke up to inform me that he made up his mind.  
"Okay. Lead the way."

Regrettably, our goal was situated in a considerable distance from the walls so, because of that, on the way there we had to pass through the crowds of terrified people, trails of destruction and among those, Purple Heart, who was aiding the group of volunteers with fixing and reinforcing what had been destroyed. Even though she was clearly busy, she spotted us as we descended to the ground level, sending us such a look as if she was hesitating to engage us. Considering that the goddesses were highly opposed to violence, I assumed she wanted to discuss what happened, but as there was no time for that, I ignored her by increasing my pace towards the adjacent street. When we reached it and I was already certain we were out of her sight, I rapidly turned on my heel and forcefully pulled Sparrow into a small back alley.  
"Wha…?" Seeing his confusion, I quickly placed a finger on my lips and said in a low voice.  
"Shh… I'd rather avoid any potential tails, so we will go underground." He approved of my words with a silent 'got it', watching as I knelt down to remove the gutter grate. "I'll go in first. Make sure to close it well." I announced and without looking down, dropped into the dark hole.  
"Sewers… I have bad memories of them." A cold shiver went through Ultimate Hunter's spine when he finally got down the ladder.  
"Come on. The night's only getting closer." Though the route of my choice couldn't exactly be perceived as pleasant, by using it we not only reduced probability of being followed, but also, we would save a lot of time with a shortcut. Basically, instead of going all around the buildings, we could go in a straight line towards our destination.  
"You know, no offence, but you're a weird guy." Suddenly, Sparrow awkwardly started a conversation. "Overpowered as hell though. Then again, I still like you. I hate indecisive people and you know what you want." I didn't comment it anyhow. "Well, I'm counting on ya, just saying…" He played with eagle his hat and after that, went silent for the most of the remaining journey.

"Are we lost?" Not sure what to do next, Christopher gazed at the stone wall.  
"No. We're getting close." I announced, pressing a hidden button in the water with a spell. This activated a mechanism which opened for us a narrow passage with a metal door at its end. Knowing that if I didn't hurry, a nasty trap would fire, I hastened inside, urging my companion to follow.  
"What is this place?" The hunter curiously studied the area and I couldn't blame him.  
"Old hideout of an organization I used to belong. Be careful, there still might be something dangerous I didn't neutralize yet." Though the Order abandoned this research lab years ago, for some strange reason, every piece of the equipment remained like if it was being used sporadically. As I couldn't determine when or for what, I kept watch over this place for a good while, but I didn't discover any abnormalities, therefore, I decided to take on a bet and use it as my base of operations for this little project called vampire hunt.  
"It's here." I declared, pressing the light switch at the back of the main hall. Then, four blinding-strong lamps illuminated the large operation table on which a human silhouette could be seen. Despite the fact it was bound to the surface and gagged, a muffled scream reached our ears. By all means, I was able to understand why Sparrow gazed at me questionably. From his perspective it might have indeed appeared as if I was some sort of a psychopath who kidnapped a woman and kept her here, so before any unneeded misunderstandings had a chance to occur, I walked to the side of the table and picked up a butcher knife, which was hanged on the wall with white tiles. After that, I sunk it into specimen's throat and swiftly pulled it out.

A gruesome, bizarrely massive stream of blood gushed out of the wound, but even with that, the target didn't display any signs of dying. Well, to be frank, it had already been dead for like a day.  
"Holy shit… That should've killed her!" Christopher Sparrow hurried closer, focusing on the vampire.  
"I can't even explain such an amount of internal liquids. Not to mention, cuts heal in seconds." As it could be guessed from the surrounding, I spent a lot of time researching potential weaknesses, what resulted in the room turning somehow slaughterhouse-ish.  
"You're right. This is unbelievable!" He started to aimlessly walk around in excitement. "How much did you learn?"  
"Remarkable resistance to physical damage, very high to magical, nearly instant regeneration, no aversion to light or any kind of religious symbols. If you wish to take a look, details of my examination lay on the desk over there." For the sake of science, I recorded the whole experiment and wrote everything down.  
"Will do. Damn… This is insane. This chick's dead cold and has freaking fangs. You weren't messing around."  
"I would never do such a thing. More than this town is in a grave danger, so I would like to ask you for your support. Since you are a hunter, your experience might become very helpful."  
"I'm not some mere hunter. I am an Ultimate Hunter! And I'll join you, so don't forget about your part of the deal later!" When he reminded about what we talked about earlier I smiled. Seeing that, he followed the suite and added. "Of course, I shall do my best."

"By the way, have you tried silver?" After a brief pause, my newly acquired ally suddenly moved to the next subject.  
"Silver?" Why should I? There was nothing like that in legends.  
"Silver should deepen vampires' wounds to prevent them from healing. Or that's at least how it went in a book I read recently. Might be worth a shot…" Shit. He was right. I also recollected such concept from my former life's memories, though until now I was too stuck to it being about werewolves, so I didn't try. Good I still had my old silver knifes on me…  
"Fuck. I used all of them in the battle." Once I realized they were missing, I sighed in regret. "I'll have to look for something silver, sorry."  
"No worries. It's not like it's a sure method anyway. How much time do we have?"  
"Less that I'd like. Thanks to us Planeptune didn't suffer much casualties although there are many injured. No bloodsucker would leave such an occasion go to waste." Without worrying about the consequences, our enemy could multiply by attacking wounded, easily disguising the reason of their death.  
"Yeah, but we're not prepared yet. Would it be fine if I examined this one on my own? It will take a day or less, I don't know." I definitely could give him as much. Even though we had to hurry, I'd rather sacrifice a single stranger than the whole society or myself. If we were to fail, there would be a very low chance that anyone else was going to see they were dealing with such a foe.  
"Go for it." My answer caused the Ultimate Hunter to grin proudly.  
"Understood. I'll begin right away, so if you're busy, feel free to leave me here alone. I don't mind and I already grasped the layout of the sewers."  
"If you say so, I shall be going, Christopher."  
"Sparrow. Just Sparrow. I hate this name."  
"As you wish, but I must tell you one more thing. In case anyone else than me appears here, shoot without asking. Unless it's a woman in a flashy yellow outfit. If you see her, run for it or at least, try to. The staircase in the neighboring room lead to the security room of the hospital. Guys working there are my collaborators, so if they see you, knock at your chest twice and show them a victory sign with your right hand." I demonstrated what I meant and then turned around.  
"Got ya. Take care."  
"You too, Sparrow. You too." I whispered under my nose. I was glad that I gained a capable ally, however, I shouldn't forget about the threat. Excluding us, there were three more people in the capital who should be protected from becoming vampire's prey at all cost: CPU, CPU Candidate and the Oracle, so I had to do something about it.


	2. Chapter 2 The ray of sunlight

**Chapter 2. The ray of sunlight**

Opposite to my predictions, Planeptune received no worrying reports from other nations on the following day, making me wonder if the offensive we met with was just a sole incident or an element of a bigger scheme. Only the time was going to unveil it, so for now, I decided to concentrate on the more urgent problems, leaving the rest to the goddesses, who as I hoped, also smelled the lingering scent of danger in the air. By all means, I didn't expect them to solve everything on their own, but to buy me enough time to finish my contemporary businesses, then I would get rid of the remaining issues, so in order to achieve that, I had to keep at least the local CPUs out of the harm's way, becoming their unofficial bodyguard. Fortunately, Plutia had to depart back to her dimension to deal with something too, so that left one person less in my care. Good riddance, I guessed, as the three of them together would have been a noisy and an uncontrollable bunch, babysitting of which would remove me from all of the patience. Well, it wasn't like Plutia's absence changed much in terms of that, however, at least manipulating them to conceal the real reason behind my actions would be easier.

"And for what exactly reason do you keep walking behind us, again? Everyone's staring at us weirdly because of you and it kinda makes me feel uncomfortable…" Neptune sighed, scratching her head. Judging from her usual demeanor, she could have been more concerned by the fact I was unintentionally stealing her spotlight, but to be honest, I wouldn't mind giving it back to her if I only could. Despite my earnest efforts to blend into the society, my black leather vest combined with heterochromia eyes and white hair still made me stick out like a sore thumb.  
"I told you before. Until we know more about what happened you need an additional support anywhere you go. It'd certainly be troublesome if the situation was to repeat itself." That was my cover-up story. Though it was unlikely to happen, the threat wasn't a lie as the goddesses could be targeted anywhere, even in this supermarket. In the end, every evidence gathered from the battlefield pointed out in random direction, although the scraps of which some of the robots were made reminded me of those I once destroyed in Trinity's factory.  
"Please don't say that. It makes me feel paranoid." Nepgear cried out as she placed a loaf of bread into her basket.  
By the way, one of the most amazing features of Planeptune was that no matter what was going on, next day no one would be bothered by it, simply returning to their everyday routines. Personally, I found it kind of disturbingly impressing, but it was senseless to dwell on it. The collective brain of this society surely worked in unusual ways; however, I didn't need to understand it more than I already did.  
"Don't worry. That's why I'm with you. In case of an emergency, you won't even have to lift your finger." Unhumbly speaking, my perception was superior to theirs, so I wouldn't have any difficulties with spotting any suspicious movements before those could get too close. That was why, as a matter of fact, I was well aware of that we were being watched ever since we entered the shop, although I couldn't figure out why and by whom yet.

"So, how much of groceries do you need to get?" Since crowds of people were present at the scene, finding the targeting us individual without alerting them was challenging. I didn't intend to do anything rush, so before I finish my observations, I decided to act as if I was clueless of the mysterious follower.  
"Oh, not much really. Just a couple of items and…"  
"Snacks! Pudding is what's the most important." The goddess interrupted her younger sister, jumping up with her hand raised into air.  
"I guess it can't be helped… Mr. Michael, is there anything you would like to buy too?"  
"Me?" I was genuinely surprised by Nepgear's offer.  
"Yeah. You helped us a lot earlier, so now we've gotta repay you a bit. As long as it's within reasonable boundaries of course. Even if I wanted to give you my daughter and half of the kingdom, there could have been some problems with that, mate." Neptune added. Was there a need for rewards? My financial status was rather well as for a seemingly normal person, therefore, I could obtain pretty much anything I wanted, both legally and on the black market, however, to be polite and more importantly, not to let them any room for distrust, I had to accept.  
"If you insist. Actually, I'm in a need of a new cape. I lost my previous one… You know when." If I was going to be presented with something, I thought the smartest choice was to ask for a practical gift. Ever since I witnessed Sparrow's ability, I felt an inspiration to develop further a certain project, so I could use some high-quality testing materials.  
"Okay. I remember a very good textile store." The younger of CPU siblings shyly smiled to me. From what I heard, presents were supposed to be enjoyable for the receiving party, however, from her reaction I concluded that the act of giving also seemed somehow rewarding. Well, at least to some of people as with such a mindset I would never understand this concept.  
"Guys, you can go ahead. I need to tie my shoelaces." I suddenly pointed on my feet in a slightly jokingly manner. Although such need didn't exist in the first place, I wanted to test something, which required our group to unsuspiciously separate for a short while.  
"I'm fine with waiting, but whatever." Neptune shrugged her shoulders and walked away without looking back. Seeing that, the Candidate hurried along as well, leaving me behind.

Alright, that was what I hoped for. I knelt down, pretending to concentrate on the aforementioned action. Surely, I wasn't being paranoiac, thus I decided to split up with the goddesses trying to bait out our tail. If they were to attack, this moment would be perfect to seize the initiative as I created a rather splendid opening. However, even if that wasn't their plan, I might be able to see something more from this distance. Anyone acting oddly enough could be a potential enemy I had to eliminate. Though not here. Killing a stalker in such an environment would raise unnecessary chaos, which given the recent circumstances, I wished to avoid. So, come out and make it fast... I stood up, facing the nearest shelf. Though the goods laying on in were plainly boring, I behaved like if I didn't see the world besides them. Even with that, the time for observations was limited, but that wasn't the worst. What concerned me the most was the fact I still could sense somebody's gaze on me. Did that mean more than one person was on their side? Hard to say, especially since the sensation of being watched changed. From the moment of Neptune and Nepgear's departure, the eyes on me began to intensify to an uncomfortable degree. Whoever it was, either was a complete amateur or wished to lure me into a trap. Or had nothing to lose from being found out by me. The stare was so intense, I would be a fool not to notice it, therefore, clenching my fist inside of my pocket, I decided to turn around on my heel in the direction of this gaze.

First thing on which my sight locked was a pair of curious brown eyes. They were passionately following my every action and belonged to a young girl, who was standing on the opposite side of the shopping alley. Her extremely light complexion was giving her an aura of fragile beauty, which was further increased by her petite frame. By all means, it was easy to think of her as a ghost. If it wasn't for her greenish jacket and worn-out blue jeans, there would have been hardly any colors on her, as her hair was white, medium long and firmly cut in a fashion which reminded me of a helmet, though it definitely had a proper name, a bob or something along these lines.  
"…" She didn't speak a word; however, it was more than obvious she wanted to make contact with me.  
"Erm, can I help you?" For an instance I considered ignoring her, but, in the end, curiosity won over. With a bit of luck, I wouldn't regret it later…  
"…!" Upon hearing my voice, she seemed to grow restless, yet still continued to stare at me in silence. What a weirdo, I thought in daze. I didn't rule out a possibility of her person being just a distraction, so even though I didn't sense any danger around at this moment, I remained wary of my surroundings. Whether it didn't exist at all or was perfectly concealed, there was no way of telling, hence I kept my safe distance from this woman.  
"…Michael? Is that you?" Despite the fact her whisper was barely audible, I noticed how pleasant to the ear was her voice. Hearing it filled me with unexpected nostalgy, as if I was being reunited with someone important after long years of separation. Though I was aware of this mistake's gravity, I found myself captivated by her, so in order to break out from this spell, I shook my head.  
"That's how I'm called. Unless you seek a different person sharing this name." Trying to sound as calm as I could, I took a closer look on her. Since my body was reacting to her in a bizarre way, I was unsure of what to do next. Was that some sort of hypnotic magic? As I normally didn't have any issues around women, I couldn't help but to feel threatened.  
"That's you?" She asked, though it sounded more like if she was talking to herself.  
"I guess… State your business. I'm kind of in a hurry." Who knew what I anticipated in response, but it definitely derailed from what occurred afterwards. Without warning, the girl quite literally jumped at me.

"Michael! I knew I'd finally find you. I'm so happy!" What…?! I had been had! Fortunately, at least it seemed that she held no ill intentions towards my person, because if she did, I was currently caught so much off guard that I became a perfect target for assassination.  
"Hey, calm down." I attempted to say; however, I doubted my message went through to her. Not only due to the fact she was so focused on embracing me, but also, since the long Velcro-type fastenings of her sleeves happened to make their way into my mouth and I wasn't able to pull them out in this position.  
"I missed you so much! And we even have matching hair color now. You look even cooler in white!" Oblivious to anything around, she continued to press herself against me. I had to admit, I was more than anxious. Forgetting about the part I was practically being choked here, I managed to notice something alarmingly erotic in the manner her fingers and legs were wrapped around my body. Explaining details might have been difficult, however, for me it was yet another reason to resolve the situation asap as we had already caused a small commotion in the shop. Because of that, I tried to gently push her away, but then I realized, I couldn't move anything besides my eyeballs.

And it wasn't all to that. The whole store, including the hugging me weirdo completely froze and most of the lights vanished. When I was planning on how to struggle to break free, I spotted a shadow moving down the alley. Following it, I spotted a figure shrouded in darkness, standing at the back of it. Though I couldn't see more than his silhouette, I was confident it was V and when he spoke up eventually, my deduction had been confirmed.  
"**I am thou, thou art I. Thou hast regained an old vow. It may break through the veil of destiny and illuminate the darkness of thy path. Only if you remember.**"

"Michael? Are you alright? You're very pale." Once the vision shattered, the girl gazed into my eyes with concern.  
"It's just…" I'm fine? I hesitated. Or should it be, whom the heck, are you? No matter how hard I thought of what I intended to say here, my mind went blank as I recollected from the sudden dizziness.  
"Michael?" She repeated, finally letting go of me, but when I made up my mind to ask about her identity, the two goddesses arrived.  
"Eh, I should've known! That was just an excuse to meet up with some girl." Neptune pointed her finger in an accusatory manner, while Nepgear greeted the one next to me with a shy wave of her hand.  
"That wasn't. I expected something else to happen, not to mention I'm still as clueless as you are." Truth to be told, this whitehaired individuality seemed to know me from somewhere, though I, on the other hand, didn't even know her name. Because of that, I was glad that Neptune steered up the conversation towards that subject.  
"So, care to introduce us to your girlfriend?"  
"Girlfriend…?" The abovementioned lady echoed the last word. Her reaction was strange, but it looked as if I was the only one who noticed it.  
"She's really pretty. I'm happy for you." CPU Candidate commented.  
"You got it wrong. She's not my girlfriend. I don't even…" Know her… At any rate, today wasn't clearly my day. Despite all of the efforts I kept putting into actually explaining stuff and things, disruptions would never come to the end as the newly-acquainted girl suddenly blurted out.  
"Michael's right. I'm not his girlfriend. I'm Charlie and I'm his fiancée."  
"What?!" The three of us shouted in unison. I never saw this one coming!  
"And what about them? You aren't cheating on me, are you?" With a forcefully sweet smile, Charlie turned to me, hiding something behind her back.  
"Ha, my name is Neptune and I'm the CPU of this nation. This cutie over there is my kid sister, Nepgear."  
"Hi."  
"That's not what I meant. Michael, what's your relationship with them?"  
"In a way, I am currently their assistant." I admitted and immediately after that, suggested. "Why don't we finish this conversation outside? Look, we're troubling other consumers." All of them agreed unanimously.

Several minutes later, we already paid for the shopping and departed out of the market. Because of the unforeseen appearance of my self-proclaimed bride, we had to reschedule our trip a bit and changed the next destination to be the Basilicom. Timewise, it was the most efficient decision as after successfully escorting the goddesses into safety, I would have to handle a certain problematic individual and I wished to avoid splitting my attention more than it was required. Speaking of her, ever since we left the shop, Charlie wouldn't separate herself from me. Clutching to my arm, she proceeded with spouting some endless stream of randomness about places she would like to visit together with me, etc. No wonder Neptune and Nepgear went ahead of us a bit, so they wouldn't have to listen to it. Frankly, I'd rather join them, but I knew it wasn't going to be effective as this bur over here would follow too.

"I tell you. Instructor gave us her blessings! She even said she would help with organizing our wedding if that's fine with you. We can invite everyone, both from the Academy and your friends. That would have been the biggest…"  
"Wait a moment." My attention had been immediately caught when I suddenly picked up this nickname from the banter. "By Instructor you mean Sylvette?"  
"Yeah, who else? Though you're the only one who ever dared to say her name aloud. By the way, Michael, you've been acting strange. Like if you didn't remember anything at all. By a chance, you didn't forget about me, did you?" Charlie's intuition was surprisingly sharp, however, if she could have simply shut her mouth every time I wished to speak up, she would have already known that from my account.  
"Because I did. Sorry, but that's true."  
"So, you did…" Her shoulders drooped as she gazed down with watery eyes. For a moment I thought her moves were nearly artificial although that had to be my imagination.  
"I don't know why, but I can't recollect any of the events from the Academy, besides the fact I was in there for a period of time. It's nothing personal." I reassured her. Though the grand majority of memories of my previous lives were restored, when it came to the Academy I was at a total loss. Frankly, I was cautious enough not to risk digging it up as in our circumstances, if I were to learn something dreadful about myself, it could lead to the worst-case scenario. I might have already been not a hero, however, to beat some kind of villains, a bigger and an eviler one was needed and I believed I matched this description perfectly in my current state.

Regardless of the circumstances, I was interested in my former relationship with Charlie, if one indeed existed in the past. Of course, it would be unwise to exclude the option of her being a lucky stalker who happened to know me back then and took advantage over my memory loss, so I had to test her. Fully trusting in people was never my thing, as I felt confident only with the results of my own work. Explaining stuff to others could often be a real pain in the ass and even when I decided to try it, success wasn't granted. Nonetheless, it wasn't like I was particularly conceived. I made errors too, but their chance of occurring was definitely lower than if anyone else attempted to do the same, so for that reason, in my opinion it was best to hide my real strength as the last resort, using expendable pawns while avoiding to emotionally bond with them. However, such philosophy had one major drawback – on some occasions I had to force myself to do things I found as a waste of time.  
"Cheer up. You're even more beautiful when you smile. Though it's not fully my fault, I shall take the responsibility. Why don't you and I go on a little date? Are you free today?" Putting on a flirting mask, I slightly closed up the distance between our faces.  
"A date? Of course! For you I'm always free. And even if I weren't, that would change." Suddenly, Charlie's mood switched 180 degrees as she overenthusiastically hugged my arm.  
"Nice. Think of a place you would like to visit and once those two are home, let's go there."  
"Okay. Hee-hee."  
Soon after, our paths with goddesses separated. Curiously, despite the initial awkwardness in their contacts with Charlie, it seemed that in the end, they got along pretty well. Neptune even invited her over to play sometime later, so whether I liked it or not, a new friendship might have begun.

"Is it really the spot you wanted to see?" I hid my sigh when we arrived to the Hill Park, southeast from the Basilicom. I wasn't surprised she chose such a place. Pretty scenery, considerably close to the city center, quiet environment… This area had no visible drawbacks to it, yet somehow, right now we were the only people here, which was sincerely bizarre.  
"Yeah. It's nice in here, isn't it? I came here on the first day in Planeptune and I'm still amazed." Charlie proudly puffed her chest and sat down on the bench next to me. As before, she left me no personal space, resting on my shoulder, but as it wasn't that much of a big deal to me, I didn't protest.  
"Agreed. To be honest, that might be my first time…"  
"Tee hee. I'm glad I could be the one to take it." Saying that, she raised up and switched her position. In order to maintain eye contact, I shifted as well, unconsciously placing my arm over the bench's back.  
"You know what, Michael? Even though you forgot, I still love you." A warm smile appeared on Charlie's face as she leaned forward with intent of kissing me, however, before her lips had a chance to connect with mine, something unpredicted occurred – a camera flashed on us.

"Oh, snap… I forgot to turn this function off. Sorry for ruining your moment." An orange-haired girl laughed nervously. She was wearing a white-red shirt with big buttons and a blue miniskirt with red bow on the side. She was holding an old-school camera, though how she was able to operate it in her ridiculously large white gloves was beyond my comprehension. Seeing our expressions, she freaked out, but instead of running away, she hastened with explanations. "Once again, sorry! I'm very very sorry, guys. That makes me a terrible reporter, doesn't it?"  
"You're a reporter?" Charlie tilted her head.  
"Yeah. Name's Famitsu. Nice to meet you. Normally I might be a game journalist; however, this time I'm writing about this park and well… I guess I got a little carried away when I saw you. By the way, may I ask you a few questions?" Once Famitsu came closer to our position, she began to talk without bothering to wait for our reactions. "Yeah, I know how someone who works in gaming industry might look like going outside. Some'd say it's a rare sight, yet as my mentor once said, gathering even the silliest of urban rumors holds a lot of value, as you may never know what can come in handy and benefit everyone. I understand, you didn't hear any gossips about Hill Park?"  
Somehow, I felt it wasn't going to be a legendary tree under which, if you were to confess your love, you would have been granted eternal happiness. Masses were stupid enough to believe in such bullshit, but Famitsu didn't strike me as a person who was willing to deliver crowds what they wanted. Instead, she appeared like someone who would search for something more groundbreaking. Though what could it be? There was only way to find out…  
"What kind of?" I pushed the conversation forward.  
"Though it's quite a recent thing, thanks to some luck, I managed to get an early lead. So, let's start from the beginning. Three days ago, a woman collapsed in the town…" Could it be? Oh, great… "…It happened I was there and saw a man rescuing her. Now I think about that, he kinda looked similar to you in a way… Never mind. I'd have remembered someone as distinctive as you." Phew… Saved by that transformation. On the side note, did I just imagine it or Charlie somehow managed to read through my expression? She sent me an understanding wink; however, I was still confident in unreadability of my poker face.

Anyhow, I should concentrate on listening to Famitsu, especially since she was obviously getting into the juiciest part.  
"That man claimed he was going to transport her to the hospital, but according to my research, they didn't arrive in any. At least not in Planeptune and I doubt someone in a critical condition would have been taken to another nation. What I am trying to say is that both of them disappeared."  
"Umm, so what of it?" Charlie commented, perfectly captioning my thoughts. Actually, nothing even remotely worthwhile came out of this story so far, but we didn't hear about the connection with this park yet, hence there still might have been more to it.  
"Leaving aside the character of the man, I managed to discover the identity of the woman. Her name is Chiaki Satonaka and she lives quite nearby from here." Famitsu took out a small notebook, making me wonder again how she could do anything precise with gloves of such size.  
"Are you implying that whatever caused her to collapse took place in this park?" Putting the pieces together, I noticed that journalist's theory matched to a certain degree with what I already had. So, the vampire preyed in the Hill Park? I shouldn't be so quick to judge as that could be just one of many areas. Still, it was a good start. Knowing where the incident began, I might be able to figure out my target's modus operandi easier than if I only had guesswork.  
"Exactly. And I'm going to discover what it was! Ms. Satonaka supposedly visited this park at night, five days ago, when her dog had run away from home. As her family testifies, after that, she became sluggish and gloomy, opposite to her normal energetic personality."  
The fact she decided to share the story with us like that meant either she had no clue it was a vampire or she had some another crazy goal. Frankly, I could see myself as a potential suspect, therefore, Charlie might have appeared to her as the next victim, so afraid I would attack her now, she staged an accident with her camera to distract me. Oh, that could be amusing to play into this scheme, although I didn't have time for messing around.  
"And for that reason, have you seen anything strange in the area? Anything is fine." Seizing her pen, the reporter asked us. Well, I didn't intend to share anything, but Charlie on the other hand, seemed to have quite a lot to say.  
"Hmm… Is the fact that on every morning I find a tray of food on the bench odd enough?" She placed her index finger on her lower lip, making me notice her nails were short and well-kept.  
"Could you elaborate, please?" Famitsu instantly became intrigued.  
"It's always in the same spot, right where he sits. I wake up around 5 am and it's already there. Though, well, if someone was lurking around, I would have known that. I'm cautious all day all night…"

Famitsu was left speechless and to be honest, I didn't blame her. Charlie had just informed us that she was basically homeless, doing that in the most casual tone one could think of.  
"You actually sleep here, outdoors?! Don't you have a hotel room or something?" A better part of my personality would have been outraged that a girl had to live like that, of course, if it existed in the first place  
"Heh, it's kind of embarrassing but well… You see, I'm flat broke." She slightly blushed, playing with ends of her hair. Seriously? Then it was a miracle she hadn't been attacked yet. Anyway, I was more concerned about that food she mentioned. Was someone of a big heart supporting her from shadows? Regardless of that, she was in a great danger if she was to remain in this park and I had to do something about that. In the end, Charlie's person could be essential to the success of my plan.

"You weren't messing around back then? About that you sleep here?" Once our conversation with Famitsu abruptly ended, I had to make sure (though that poor reporter girl had a hard time keeping her composure, she clumsily struggled until the very end).  
"…" Charlie gazed down, not saying a word. So, that wasn't a lie.  
"You're fucking crazy. What if something bad happened to you?"  
"Michael, I can defend myself. No one would stand a chance to sneak up on me…" Charlie protested, visibly upset because of what I said to her.  
"Don't give me that crap. You can never be sure. I won't let you take any more risks." Upon hearing that, she froze. "Bringing you to the hotel might be problematic, although there's an apartment I own in Planeptune. If you're going to insist on staying on this bench, I'll carry you there by force." Did I accidently nail my previous character? Apparently, I might have, as erupting with happiness Charlie threw herself on me, tangling around my neck with blushed cheeks, proclaiming.  
"Feel free to carry me straight to the bedroom." Ugh… I sighed in thoughts. Her usefulness better had to outshine the fact she was such a hindrance…


	3. Chapter 3 The hunt is on

**Chapter 3. The hunt is on**

Fortunately, at the Basilicom they didn't see any difficulties with Charlie temporarily moving in there, because as Neptune described it, that flat was kind of made for me anyway, so I could do whatever I wanted with it. 'Besides, a friend of my friend is a friend of mine'. An interesting motto, I dared to observe. But what if this 'friend' turned out to be the enemy? In that case, too much of trust would lead to a tragedy, which would have been entirely my fault. Even so, I was sure there wouldn't be any negative consequences of bringing Charlie into the center of the nation. She was a silly young girl and her gullibility seemed to be the only dangerous feature of her character. Or at least, I counted on that, as no matter how skilled I might be, such a short while wasn't enough to judge one's personality. Taking into account that she was one of Sylvette's disciples, she could have been as strong and as fast as many men could only dream of, even if her built was suggesting otherwise. At any rate, I should keep her in my sight for the time being. Not because I enjoyed these immature advances, but rather, to find out how capable she was and additionally, to learn more about her reasons of self-proclaiming herself as my bride, therefore, I bravely decided to move in together with her. Not a shocker, this news made Charlie ecstatic and once the night descended upon us, she began to undress in the bedroom. She was so caught up in her own world she never noticed that in the meantime, I left the Basilicom as there were more pressing endeavors than those around the bed.

During that night I met up with Sparrow at the hideout to exchange results of our researches. With that out the way I could be sure we were on the right path to exterminate the vampire, so nothing more remained than to commence the operation, failure of which was not an option. Therefore, on the following day I brought Charlie into the sewers.  
"So, where are we going? Well, as long as it's with you I'm fine wherever you choose." Even here she couldn't stop clinging to me. What a bothersome little… "But where were you last night?"  
"I was working." I answered.  
"Didn't you say you were CPU's assistant? Does that include overnight services?" Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, making me wonder if she truly knew what was coming out of her mouth.  
"Did I tell you that's all I do? Anyway, there's someone I'd like you to meet."  
"Oh, who?" Instantly forgetting about the topic from a second earlier, Charlie jumped up to my face.  
"You will see soon." Giving her such a cryptic answer, I activated the door mechanism and led her inside into the temporal base.

First what struck me was the sound of violin. Because of this complex's acoustics, it had been strongly enhanced and resonated throughout all of the rooms. In the midst of it stood Sparrow, passionately holding the instrument. He was playing it as well as if it was a natural extension of his arm.  
"Wow…" Charlie whispered, mesmerized by the melody and I shared her opinion. Who would have thought Sparrow was a very talented musician? A short while passed until he realized we had arrived.  
"You're early…" He said, placing the violin on the table.  
"We are." I took a rather big safety pillow just in case Charlie made difficulties on the way. Though I could see her trying to force me into a detour like shopping, she hadn't actually done anything of that sort. When I told her it was a mission, she became dead serious in her own unique style. "This is Charlie I mentioned before. Charlie, allow me to introduce Sparrow." There was no need to say more.  
"Honored to make acquittance." Curtly taking off his hat, Ultimate Hunter bowed his head. Charlie on the other hand, replied with a short hello and turned to me again.  
"Is that him?"  
"No. There's still someone else, but first of all, a briefing is needed." She nodded, allowing me to continue. "Do you remember the story that reporter told us yesterday?"  
"The one about the collapsed and missing woman?"  
"Correct. And as she had a hunch, I was indeed the one to find the victim. Thanks to that, I was able to determine the cause of death."  
"She died?"  
"It was an acute blood loss. Hardly believable, huh?" Sparrow added. "She had no visible wounds or any internal damage. That is, besides two small well-hidden holes on her neck. Do you understand what does it mean, young miss?"  
Once she heard that, Charlie began to think. I didn't want her to misunderstand, so I delivered the final piece, completing the story.  
"She had been attacked by a vampire, turning into one as well after her death. See it yourself…" With a loud bang I slammed the door to the operational theatre wide open, revealing what not so long ago used to remind butcher's workshop.

Charlie gasped, covering her mouth, but that was quite natural. I didn't take her to be tough enough to handle such stuff, however, it might have been still too early to determine that.  
"This is Ms. Satonaka. Or allow me to rephrase, this used to be her." Because now it was just an empty shell of a dead woman, who pretended to be alive. In other words – a monster feasting on human blood, which had no right to exist. Fear not, once your purpose is over, I shall put you out of your misery, vampire. I announced in my thoughts and the same went for her master and any brothers and sisters in vampirism.  
"Heh, though at first I thought this guy was nuts when I saw her, that's a fact. Of course, I mean the vampire. Him being crazy is another subject, however, I won't go into details now…" I couldn't grasp whether Sparrow attempted to support me or offend, so I decided to ignore him.  
"If you still don't believe, there is a lot of video footage. At least 12 hours of experiments recorded from various angles and on different devices. Forging this much without any flaws would be impossible." Although, only seemingly. I preferred to convince Charlie to join with my words only, but I made sure to prepare as much of evidence as I could anyway.  
"I'd never distrust you, Michael. It's just… It's so sudden and…" She hesitated. Unless I was going to take an action, there was a chance she would say no, so I stepped closer to her and affectionally caressed her cheek.  
"That's why I got so mad when I heard you were sleeping in the park. Satonaka could have been victimized in that location, so I was worried about you."  
"Michael…" Charlie embraced me. From the touch I could feel her body was slightly trembling.  
"I hate to have you risking your life, but you are the only one who we can do this. We need your help to hunt down the vampire and protect citizens of this nation. Will you aid us, Charlie? I'll be forever in your debt."  
"I… can't…" The girl in my arms uttered. In the end, she was going to reject it, huh? I was slowly preparing to 'convince' her in a less pacifistic style, but at that moment Charlie burst out into laughter.  
"This is so amazing. Like if it was a manga! A city full of terrors and a lone hero trying to save it. At his side, a beautiful heroine. They fight together, side by side, with forces of evil and eventually succeed. When it's over, they get married and live happily ever after. Michael, how many kids would you like to have? I'm fine with whatever you like, but I think a boy and a girl is a great choice. Let's name him Michael Jr. and her – Michaela. What do you think?"  
Err, excuse me? I gazed over to Sparrow, however, he was as bewildered as me. In spite of this mass of bullshit I had to separate from this outburst to discover her true decision, I could already tell she was in. How would it end for her was another topic, but I that wasn't my priority right now. She was just a pawn on the chessboard set by me in order to win and if victory demanded sacrifices, I'd not falter to dispose of her or Sparrow, although the latter was definitely worth more. In this analogy, he could have been my rook, though his true assets were yet to be revealed. This man was still a big unknown, however, I needed his trust, so without alarming Charlie who was focused on her delusions, I nodded to him conspiratorially. Both of us were well aware that the game had already begun.

The trap was already set before the nightfall, so it was only a matter of time until the vampire would have been lured to it and then, everything would be over.  
"Perfect visibility. It'll be a clear shot, so don't rush." I made an obvious remark. Both me and Sparrow were situated on one of the roofs, waiting for our moment to strike. Sadly, as we didn't know if vampires could detect sources of magic, we had to rely on more traditional methods of concealing our presences, so we had to keep our voices down.  
"No shit, sherlock." He replied in a bland tone and then, added without separating his eye from the scope of his rifle. "You sure about that? I mean that child down there. She seems to have some screws loose, but she's still innocently mad in love with you. Is it really the only solution?"  
"If there was one, I'd have already taken care of it by now. Shoot when vampire is biting her. Not earlier." Though there was no way of telling what consequences would such a bite have on Charlie's health, sacrificing her was going to lower the chances of failure. If by a chance she was going to turn, she would have been disposed of as well.  
"Got it. You're one heartless bastard, you know?" Yeah, I knew it perfectly, Sparrow, however, that was exactly what made me the right man for this job. Feeling that it was useless to prolong this conversation, I gazed down to the ground level to see how Charlie was doing.

If my theory was correct, the vampire would attack her if an opportunity would arise, therefore, I made sure to prepare the appropriate setting. A lonely girl, an empty dark street next to the supposedly dangerous park and two hunters – that should be enough. Additionally, just in case, I made sure to have Charlie disguise herself, so she changed into a sleeveless green party dress, donned a long black wig and put on fitting makeup to make her skin seem healthier. To avoid other risks, I gifted her with expensive perfumes. Like that, she could play the role of someone impatiently waiting for her date to arrive, to which she was apparently very looking forward to due to the gifts from me. What a simpleton. A small smirk formed on my face. What a shame she was likely to die… But hey, unlike the king, pawns could be replaced, though I wasn't that desperate to search for them at the moment, I thought, focusing on idly watching my experimental subject.

"Stay vigilant." I ordered Sparrow though both of us knew that was going to be a long night. Nothing worth noting happened for the most of it, so we proceeded with the next step of the prearranged scenario. Waiting for several hours would have been suspicious if the culprit was somewhere close, stalking its prey, thus I advised Charlie to switch position after a longer while. That was why she paced over to one of the benches and dropped on it, pretending to cry. I had to admit, her acting was considerably fine, at least from this distance. Anyway, I looked on Sparrow. Although a new day was gradually getting closer, as expected from the alleged Ultimate Hunter, he didn't seem affected by it anyhow. Neither I was. Some aspects of my body were still a great mystery to me; however, I was glad it cooperated with me so far and I didn't have to endure exhaustion or impatience. If not tonight, we would have to try again later, though with a revised plan. Or… On the second I began to invent another plot, something interesting occurred.

A shadowy figure emerged from the darkness behind Charlie's back, creeping up upon her.  
"That's it." I felt relieved that the hunt wasn't an utter waste of time. If someone were to be a vampire, this blonde man in rich white and blueish robes with puffy sleeves and a long, matching scarf would certainly fit into my stereotypical image of a member of that specie. His appearance might have been very similar to that of a human, however, to a keen eye it was apparent that he wasn't normal. Even the aura around him was so otherworldly that it was basically screaming hello, I am the one you seek.  
"We've got him now!" Sparrow happily announced, reassuring his grip on the trigger.  
"Wait. Something's not right." Although what? I couldn't tell yet, so I concentrated on surveillance, especially as the target started a conversation with Charlie.  
"Vat's vrong, my child? Did some misfortune befall on such a beauty like thy? Ze nights are dark and full of terrors, verefore, thy ought to return to safe haven at once." The vampire spoke in a weird, hardly understandable accent, so I wasn't surprised to see Charlie's confused reaction. Damn you, stupid girl. Get your act together or it was going to see through you. Never underestimate your foes or you will be spectacularly defeated.  
"He… He stood me up…" Eventually, Charlie managed to recollect to a heartbroken mode.  
"Vat's outrageous! Such manners do not befit a worvy gentleman. Give me his name and I shall duel wiv'is fiend to reclaim thy lost honor!" Wow, a very chivalrous one. I wondered how Charlie was going to respond to that.  
"That would make things worse. Please, don't do anything rush. I'm sure he had his reasons…"  
"I see. Even vough, thy still loves vis man, ven I shall not partake any actions. May I?" He pointed on a bench and after receiving a silent nod of affirmation, he sat down in a proper distance from her. "Thy ought to know, being out during ze nighttime is dangerous. Vat's why once thy's ready, I shall escort thy home." Not good. We must act soon.  
"There's no need for you to bother. I'm fine…"  
"No, no, no. As a gentleman ov a high birv, I must protect vose who need it. I swore it on ze name ov my ancestors. As long as I am Gilbert ov ze Montesquie family, I shall live up to ze expectations!" The vampire declared with a proud expression on its face. Whatever it was up to, it wasn't going according to my predictions, so if my new theory was right, a drastic change of tactic was necessary.  
"Cover me." I ordered Sparrow and jumped off the roof.

The vampire wasn't going to feast here, so I had to take the reins of this situation in my own hands. Since Charlie had no home, if she would try to lead our enemy somewhere without a sense of direction, it would surely understand that quickly. And not only that influenced my decision. Following them would be hard, if not impossible, therefore, I had to take our chances on this battlefield, on own terms. Because of that, I grabbed a pair of silver knives and charged straight at the vampire. However, it dodged the well-aimed blow at its heart.  
"I'm actually impressed. Not many would have survived that." I lowered my voice still turning around. By any means, I wasn't admitting defeat, though it might have appeared like it was the case.  
"Such covardice! Unvinkable! I shan't let thou lay hands on vis girl, brute!" Unexpectedly, the vampire shielded Charlie with its body.  
"I never intended to hurt her. You are my target. Or rather, you were." I gazed on a second dagger, which managed to pierce his side and using it as a distraction, I attacked once again.  
"Thou hast no honor!" The self-proclaimed aristocrat snapped at me, although this outburst went nearly unnoticed as at the same time, two noises muffled it simultaneously. One of them was the sound of the bullet penetrating vampire's flesh, while the other turned out to be something unforeseen. In all of the calculations I'd done, I never considered my enemy would be able to use magic, which resulted in being caught off guard once a huge explosion was casted right at my face.  
"Fuck." I tightened my lips when my vision cleared. In the end, I messed up at the most important moment, letting myself to be defeated by such a petty trick. Spells of this level weren't able to harm me, though I would prefer if they did, as that would have been a right price to be paid for this mistake.  
"Are you alright?" I heard Charlie's voice.  
"Where's the target? Where did it go?" I demanded.  
"This way! I think he can fly."  
"I'm going after it alone. Stay here with Sparrow." Giving this order, I saw a gist of a black mass floating off in the distance. It wasn't that far yet, so ignoring Charlie's buts about my decision, I rushed to pursue the vampire.

It was fast, but so I was. Though it might have hoped to lose me midair, it received a rather unpleasant surprise as I was able to gradually close on it despite the height. Although I couldn't float, I was able to utilize over V's powers by combining them with magical platforms, which I used in order to support myself in the air. This way, the chase went on and on through the whole Planeptune City, however, it seemed that the walls of the town were going to be the finish line. Due to the wounds, my target must have lost its strength to flee, in consequence, greatly slowing down. This created a perfect opportunity to eliminate it in more or less desolate area, without having to deal with an excessive number of eyewitnesses, therefore, once I finally caught up to the escaping mist, I used a binding spell to bring it down to the ground level.

"I… failed? Is ze ancient bloodline of Montesquies going to end just because ov some sort ov a commoner?" Count Gilbert lamented as I stood above him in silence. Such treatment must have been worse to him than I thought. Death would eventually come for everyone. Both for rich and poor, attractive and ugly, no matter if they believed themselves to be immortal or not, their lives would ultimately end in one way or another. There was no way to avoid that encounter, of course, excluding one – becoming Death yourself. Personifications of it greatly varied in different cultures, however, at least when it came to this being in front of me, I was nearly certain that the Grim Reaper had my face. What was I going to do next? The final call wasn't made yet as I wished to take advantage of this course of actions, hoping to uncover some of the still veiled mysteries.  
"Tell me, how does it feel to suck one's blood? Does it bring any kind of a satisfaction to you?" Though it might have seemed like if I intended to moralize him, I would never do such a thing. Morality was a fully objective matter.  
"Thou could never understand… Thou hast a face ov ze devil!" I do? Oh, my, how sweet.  
"Then enlighten me." I pressed my blade closer to the vampire's throat.  
"Tch… Thou give me no choice… Very vell, I shall tell thou everyving." My prey spat out blood on the ground, finally surrendering, it began to summarize its story.

To put to the boringly long and insignificant story into the low amount of words, Gilbert Montesquie was a son of aristocratic family in the land called the Kingdom of Bukovic. A revolution started, heads of the king and his court, Montesquie's father included, rolled down, the crowd began a purge of aristocracy and Gilbert's family was caught in it. They tried to escape; however, they were caught. Only Gilbert survived and after that, he traveled the country, practicing magic in order to take revenge on those who killed his loved ones. One day he met a mysterious woman, who offered him an opportunity to gain what he desired. His memories of that time were hazily fragmented, but it was still quite interesting to hear, even though the next thing he remembered was waking up in Planeptune with a pair of grown fangs and an unquenchable thirst for human blood.

"That's a rather awful lot of information about an episodic character, who had just made his debut…" I loudly exhaled.  
"Thou asked and I ansvered. Yet thou still disbelieve." No, it wasn't like that. I was certain that he stated the truth, however, there was no point of inquiring for more details as he was unlike to know anything more specific. Instead, I grabbed him by his collar to meet my eyelevel.  
"You were lurking around the Hill Park, didn't you? Have you seen a white-haired girl there?"  
"Vat's right. She vas sleeping on a bench, poor ving…"  
"Did you attack her?" I interrogated him.  
"Negatif! I vuld never do such a monstrosity. Even iv I were to die because ov vat!"  
"Then what about that other girl? Or perhaps are you going to stick to that you didn't touch her? She died and transformed into one of your kind not so long ago." That seemed to hit the spot.  
"Died…?" Gilbert's eyes widened as he blankly repeated the word. It was like if the whole will to live left his body in one instance and unexpectedly, tears began to flow down out of his eyes. "I… Vat vas an accident! I never vought it vuld end vis vay! Vis hunger vas unbearable and I lost… I am a murderer. Please, thou must slay me vor vis atrocious crime!" He cried out, although there was still no guarantee his act was genuine, so I remained on guard.  
"That can wait. I need one more thing before I may judge you properly. Focus and answer me. In that park… Did you see someone leaving food?"  
"Gulp…" A nervous reaction.  
"So, it was you then?" My grip around his neck tightened. Though I could see he was slowly being choked, he wasn't even trying to fight back. Did he give up? Perhaps he understood that winning or escaping me was impossible, but I couldn't fully negate the sincerity of his wish to atone. "Do you desire to return to your past? To days from before the curse had been bestowed upon you?" I asked without breaking the eye contact.  
"I… Me didn't vant any ov vis to happen! I beg ov you, let me pay for vis sin wiv my life!"  
"Very well. If that's your wish, I shall take it with pleasure…" And so, the area had been illuminated by the surge of blueish smoke, which devoured the vampire, returning it to the darkness of the night.

"Oh, there you are. You haven't been coming back for a long while, so she got worried… Is it over?" Suddenly, Sparrow's voice brought me back to reality. Following by his, there was another, annoying female one, which started to mumble something idiotic, but I paid no mind.  
"Yes. It's done. Go home for the night." I wasn't even in the mood to criticize them for disobeying my orders. Frankly, all I needed right now was some silence and solitude.  
"I didn't think you were a smoking type though…" Neither I did, yet here I was, sitting on a boulder with a cigarette between my lips, sporadically letting out a cloud of smoke. By all means I didn't enjoy this activity; however, I had no other option…  
"Got a problem with that?" I threw to him irritably.  
"It's bad for your health. You should quit." Unexpectedly, I received a lecture. Hmm… How should I reply to such words of wisdom?  
"Fuck off." I decided to go with a tastelessly simple line, which somehow turned out to be effective as the Ultimate Hunter backed off a few steps in a peacemaking gesture, with his palms on the display.  
One dealt with, the second one took advantage to catch my attention.  
"And what's with you?" Right before Charlie was about to reach the highest level of invasion of my personal space, I turned in her direction and hoping to scare her away with that, I puffed the smoke right into her face. Surprisingly, she wasn't bothered by it anyhow, more to that, she seemed quite satisfied.  
"Can I have one? Pretty please…" Gazing intently on the cigarette, she used the cutest voice she could muster, which gave me a sudden urge to throw up a rainbow. Not losing my cool I shook my head.  
"Aw, there's no need to be shy. If you're embarrassed by just an indirect kiss, then I wonder how red you will get once we return and…"  
"Not interested. Get lost." I cut into her stream of fantasies. Being so blunt could have not been the best choice in the long-term perspective, however, my patience was already running thin.  
"Hmpf. You will change your mind and I'm gonna say the same." In an overly exaggerated pout, Charlie crossed her arms and pretended to close her eyes. Even though, she was still quite obviously peeking at me, trying to read my thoughts.

Well, talking to her more than that was bothersome, so I stood up and walked towards Sparrow, who seemed to finally notice something I wished him to find on his own.  
"The vampire… Why is it still alive?" He gazed at me questioningly.  
"The vampire is indeed dead, however, the body which used to belong to it remains intact. Our target has been slain and whom you see right now is Gilbert Montesquie. I promise he's no longer in the mood for blood." I let out a dry chuckle and after I threw the cigarette butt on the ground, I continued. "If you still don't get it, then let's leave it on that the guy is no longer a vampire, but a regular human or so I hope."  
"How? Are you sure? I think we should be more careful." Though he was still skeptical, I wasn't going to get into more details than that.  
"This person may be a key witness to a breakthrough in your problem, so I'm keeping him alive. I'm going to have a longer talk with him once he wakes up, so for now, I require your assistance, Sparrow."  
"If you say so."  
"Take him to our base and patch him up. I'll join you after I take care of something…" Saying that I turned towards the spot where dejected Charlie was playing with the belt of her jacket, in which she apparently changed into on the way here.

Five minutes later, the two of us were already strolling through the empty streets of Planeptune. Though typically she would throw herself on me, rambling endlessly while glued to my side, this time she kept a visible distance, walking with her hands in pockets a few steps away from me. Did she take it that seriously? So far, I used to think of her as a naïve child who desperately sought refuge from the outside world in a deluded feeling, but what I could currently see shook my confidence. Right now, I felt as if I was with a completely different woman. A calm and dignified one, who shared only the physical appearance with the obnoxious Charlie I knew. For that reason, unsure of how I should behave, I studied her figure for a moment, though as I quickly understood, it was pointless. Her expression was unreadable.  
"It's a full moon. Quite a special time, don't you agree?" A pained smile crossed Charlie's face, but it didn't take long until it faded.  
"There might be something to that. The moon still keeps many mysteries."  
"Yes, it does… Though it may be better if some of them are never brought to light." Having said that, she gazed up on the sky. "Thank you for your invitation. It means a lot to me to be able to spend this time with you…"  
"No problem. And sorry for before. I shouldn't treat you so harshly. Besides, there's something I wish to talk about with you." Feigning remorse I lowered my head.  
"Nothing to apology for. What a coincidence though. I was interested in using this chance to discuss something with you too." Charlie giggled and once she went silent again, I pressed to learn more.  
"Sure, ladies first then."  
"I'm glad… We're running out of time, so please, listen closely." Without waiting for my response Charlie stopped in her tracks. Sensing the importance of her message, I unconsciously held my breath, allowing myself to be locked in her gaze.

"Michael… Despite the fact you don't remember anything yet, I must give you a warning. You and I are the prisoners of fate, bound to the eternal suffering by forces far beyond the comprehension of any of us. Each of the attempts to break out of its chains was unsuccessful and that's why our options became limited. This is the last chance, so don't let it go to waste. The demise, towards which you are steadily heading will mean the end to everything."  
I froze, not knowing how to react to what I heard. None of what reached my ear made any logical connection, however, for some strange reason I couldn't help but to fear.  
"I will. Thank you for your concern, Charlie." Seizing the initiative, I stepped closer to her. A dawn was coming and the first rays of sunlight were filling the town with gradually intensifying shade of orange. Soon, the capital of Planeptune was about to begin a new day, so I had to make the most out of it. "No matter who opposes us, they will be crushed. You can rest assured. Once the truth is going to come out, I will be prepared to finish it off." As I gently grasped her hand, Charlie raised her head. We were so close to each other that I could feel her breath and surely, she could mine as well. I placed my free hand on her throat and began to slowly move it up, caressing her pale skin. It was so smooth that there was no resistance at all. Charlie seemed to be such a frail girl… Even now, I could snap her neck with no effort, making it easier for both of us. I should cut off from the problematic tale of fate she mentioned. Yeah, that was what I had to do. If there was indeed truth to her account, I couldn't afford to take any risks. My destiny was something I had in my own hands, so in order for it to remain in that place, I slightly tightened my grip. Yet her expression was still unchanged, though at this point my intentions should be obvious. Why? For what exactly reason was she so calm while facing death? Though she hinted that she and I were in a grave danger, this girl appeared to be accepting my will unfazed.  
"Charlie…" I whispered, not bothering to conceal my emotions, if those could be named this way. Nonetheless, I let my fingers sink even deeper, when suddenly, a sense of déjà vu struck me "It all be over soon, I promise. But for now…" Disregarding this thought, I did what had to be done. We stood there for a longer while, with our lips joined in a kiss until our silhouettes were completely enveloped in the sunlight.


	4. Chapter 4 London Bridge

**Chapter 4. London Bridge**

"Are you sure of it, man? Guns are not to be aimed at someone whom you don't want to kill…" Sparrow asked as I was positioning myself in an appropriate distance from him in the courtyard of Planeptune Basilicom, which had been previously prepared by us for this occasion. In today's experiment I required help from a sharpshooter of Christopher Sparrow's level, so I was glad he agreed, even though he was still a bit uncertain.  
"Yes. Fear not. Such weapon won't hurt me much even if you actually happen to hit me." I reassured him, throwing a knife between my hands and entered a defensive stance. In response, my assistant groaned, mumbling something like 'hell, I would miss, but whatever', then he followed the instructions received earlier by firing the whole clip from his rifle in my direction.

The whole world around me seemed to slow down. Though it may have looked like a cheap movie trick, it wasn't an editing effect, but in fact, magic. How exactly this spell worked was a great mystery even to me, however, utilizing the potential of my senses together with it, I gained an ability to foresee the incoming future and preplan my following actions, or so I at least thought as its effectiveness turned out to be disappointing. Besides the sensation of aforementioned slow-motion, I didn't feel any visible progress comparing to what I was capable of beforehand. Never mind that now. It wasn't time for reflections, so I slashed my blade at the barrage of bullets. Several clinks of metal clashing against each other rang out, thus without the need to confirm hits, I moved to the next round, clearing out all of the remaining projectiles before they had a chance to reach me.  
"Seriously…?" Sparrow's jaw dropped down in disbelief once he saw what I did.  
"It was a failure. Thanks for your cooperation though." Well, at least I practiced dealing with guns as those were kind of special in Gamindustri. In a way, they were both easily accessible and not, but let's not get into this deep subject. What was truly important was that the ones Sparrow was in possession of were different from weapons available in this world. Although their technology was less advanced, reminding more of those I knew from my past life, they were still considerably powerful and from what I could tell, Sparrow was working on upgrading them in his free time.  
"That's a shame, I guess? Still, wow. Even I wouldn't get out of that unhurt. Geez, you even cut all of the rounds perfectly in half!" He gasped, checking out the area. As my business here was already over, in the meantime, I headed back to the building.

Inside, I was welcomed by an overwhelming silence. No one was here as the goddesses, together with the Oracle, were out on a short visit in Lastation. Despite the fact they were clueless how much danger it could bring to the nation, in the end, I let them go. As long as I was here, even if something terrible was going to happen, I would have surely got in under control fast. Anyway, on the personal ground I found their little trip a huge upside. Yesterday I noticed that Charlie was missing as well, therefore, I could at last enjoy some peace and privacy. On the other hand, that was a bit of surprising for her to willingly separate herself from me, although I was no longer able to comprehend what was inside of that girl's head. Ever since that incident 3 days ago, she reverted back to her regular behavior, however, the seed of doubt had been already planted in my mind. Deep in thoughts about that and several other important subjects, I dropped on the sofa, deciding to close my eyes for a moment.

Walls of ceramic white tiles surrounded me from all directions. No matter how hard I tried to find doors or windows, there were none of them, so I was desperately crawling forward. Since my vision was that blurry and unsteady, my head must have been gravely wounded, however, even with that I managed to notice red stains, which were gradually increasing around. Blood? Most likely, I concluded, spotting the source of this mess. It originated from that person. As their shape was enveloped by layers of pulsing dark mass, I wasn't able to determine whether they were human in the first place, but for some strange reason I couldn't shake off the feeling of familiarity with this creature. It didn't seem to be bothered by my presence, busy with something, though at the time I wasn't able to tell what. While I was giving my all to shorten the distance between us, more and more of red liquid sprayed around and as I managed to focus a little, I picked up a characteristic sound of a blade sinking into flesh. Repeatably, stab after stab… This dreadful rhythm had been empowered by my imagination. Then a cheerful humming reached my ear, filling my body with fear. What was going on? What was about to happen to me? Somehow, it reminded me that it should be the last of my worries. Maybe it was still not too late… I attempted to delude myself although it should have been obvious from the start. The small hand, which was sticking out from the side wasn't moving besides being shaken by the endless sequence of blows.  
"Stop it. Leave her alone." I wanted to plead; however, my throat didn't allow me to do so. Despite that, the figure stood up, dropping its long knife on the floor with a loud clank, which resonated in my head with a power of a thunderbolt. Even though I couldn't see its face, I felt that it was grinning at me, but before it had a chance to do anything more, another ear-piercing sound tore the scene apart.

**DREEEEE REEEE RIIIN**. A pretentious signal made me spring up from my slumber. **REEEEEE RIIIIIN**. Who the hell thought something as nightmarish like that was a right choice to pick for a ringtone? Ah, right… I nearly forgot where I was right now, so I shouldn't be amazed. Anyway, wishing for the irritating melody to die in a horrible way, I located the old-school telephone device and without thinking, I picked it up.  
"Planeptune Basilicom. How can I help you?" I answered, impersonating a dull voice commonly associated with secretaries.  
"_Well, duh? Nep Jr dialed, so I know I was calling home._" Such overconfident voice could belong only to one person, the goddess of this nation – Neptune.  
"What do you need?"  
"_Straight to the point, huh? Personally, I wouldn't mind chitchatting a bit, though a certain someone is already trying to forcefully intercept… Waaagh, don't hit me, Noire! This Nep did nothing wrong!_" Suddenly her voice quieted down, quickly being replaced by another one, sharper and noticeably more determined than the previous speaker.  
"_Cut that down, Neptune! If it wasn't for these circumstances, I wouldn't waste my time talking to him._" Ouch, that hurt… However, my new interlocutor seemed to reflect on her statement. "_I'm sorry and umm… Hi…_" CPU of Lastation greeted me with an obvious hint of awkwardness. In this very second, she could have been thinking how long had it been, though she was unaware that we met each other in person quite recently. Never mind the idle small talk, swallowing the urge to put down the receiver, I decided to pressure her.  
"If you called only to waste my time, I'm going."  
"_No, no, no! Don't do that! Ekhm, I meant, let's get over with it asap. Though I am unsure of how I should put it in words. It's kinda complicated, but you know, what about a strictly theoretical, of course, scenario. Yes, that should definitely work! What would you do if there was a heinous criminal in your city?_"  
"I'd remove them."  
"_You would? That's not a time to joke around! Anyway, what if the said criminal was untraceable? How would you pursue them?_"  
"Impossible. As every action has its consequences, the same applies to evidence. Just because you don't know how to look for it, that doesn't mean it's not there." I replied according to the truth, but at that moment I realized something. Her description was oddly specific, I dared to say. Putting together what kind of a person Noire was, the tone she spoke to me and her wording, I spotted something highly suspicious. In the end, who normal would phone others for such purely academic discussions? Though I was aware of how farfetched this deduction was, I decided to confront her with a bluff.  
"Don't lie to me. It's really happening, isn't it? Be frank as prolonging it will cost more lives and harm your shares. If my intuition is right, you may be facing something beyond your reach." A long silence… For a second I thought she hung up on me, but background noises revealed that Noire was still on the line, perhaps struggling to choose her response. Did I hit the bull's eye?  
"_There's ABSOLUTELY no way something like that would ever take place in my nation! And even if, I would have dealt with it effortlessly._" Forced confidence, huh? Even from here I could hear how loudly she swallowed before opening her mouth, not to mention, this panic made it apparent that she was losing ground.  
"Then why do you bother to ask? You have your perfect solution and I'm quite busy, so I'll put down the…" I didn't have to wait long for the effects of this taunt.  
"_Don't do that! That's just for scientific purposes. Exactly! A friend of mine is writing a book on this matter and I'm just helping to gather research material. I'm telling you!_" Noire screeched to my ear. She was sinking even deeper with each sentence and the feint sound of Neptune's laughter was dealing further damage to her credibility.  
"Whatever. I know something is up and I am coming to Lastation. See you there." Not waiting for her response, I slammed the receiver back on its place. The recent vampire incident taught me not to underestimate subtle events as they may be in fact a prelude to a larger disaster, so who knew what could happen next? Very well then, before the departure, I still had to fortify Planeptune's defenses and put on them a trustworthy commander in my stead and that wasn't going to be an easy task.

Evening of the same day. I reached my destination and climbed the roof of some tall enough building to look around. Though from what I said it might have appeared I intended to meet up with the CPUs, that wasn't correct. By all means, I even wished to avoid making contact with them before I scouted the situation. Maybe I still didn't know whether there was indeed a necessity for an investigation, but as I decided to stick to my gut feeling, it was a high time to move. Thankfully, I remembered the layout of Lastation's capital quite well, but even that wasn't going to help me much, therefore, at the beginning I had to get to the heart of this nation – the Basilicom.

In spite of being seemingly similar in terms of the architectural structure, the difference between this Basilicom and the one in Planeptune was rather evident. Of course, excluding the pallet of black, grey and white instead of the mixture of purples, technology of this building was definitely superior, however, that wasn't significant. Trying to blend into the crowd, I sat down on a bench, listening to the surrounding. Regrettably, most of what I picked up was a chatter and other unnecessary obstruction, in other words, nothing which pointed out to any murder case. Did I overthink it or were the citizens simply unaware? I couldn't judge on my own. As it seemed I wouldn't be able to learn much from here, I had to change the location before I was going to raise suspicion of the authorities. What a shame. It seemed I was going to be forced into having to search every inch and cranny of this city in my discretion or… Suddenly, with a corner of my eye I detected some familiar faces. There were four of them to be precise: Neptune and Noire with their younger sisters – Nepgear and Uni. They were coming from the side of the Basilicom, judging from their expressions that wasn't a regular happy family trip. They didn't notice my presence as of yet, so I decided to follow them from a safe distance.

Without encountering any particular difficulties, the group of goddesses and me on their tail, made it to a neighborhood, poorly named as Shifting. Personally, I didn't have much background knowledge about this area besides it being a fairly new estate for the working medium class, which was formed not only by blocks of flats of various height, but also, single-family houses, although the first of them seemed to be in interest as the party of CPUs headed straightforwardly towards the flashy yellow police tapes and once they were let in by a pair of female officers, they disappeared inside of the block number 6. By all means, my options of getting inside of the building were very limited. Having to deal with only one entrance, which couldn't be accessed unnoticed, put me in a quite a predicament as I couldn't simply burst in or try to sweet talk my way through. Sneaking in by climbing one of the windows or the roof wasn't going to work either, as there was a bunch of onlookers in the vicinity. Being spotted while ascending was likely to happen even with my abilities and that would have raised needless suspicion, restricting my further actions if this block was indeed hiding what I believed it did. Since I wished to stay out of the spotlight as long as it was only possible, I couldn't take advantage of my old Planeptune Basilicom badge, therefore, I had to admit my defeat for now and before I could lose my animosity among the crowd, I backed off to the side, pretending to be focused on the nearby bulletin board.

This action wouldn't buy me much time; however, I was sure that it was still going to be enough to analyze the current state of affairs. To be honest, there wasn't much to think about anyway. As long as I could rely on my intuition and deductions alone, without actually witnessing any bodies, all of this could be as well occurring in my head. How could I catch the culprit if I didn't see the effects of their work? Even though my position was pretty much tragic, an idea to resign hadn't crossed my mind. They weren't visible to me now, but there had to be at least a couple of alternatives of obtaining evidence, so getting discouraged was unreasonable, I concluded, scanning through the posters. A circus is performing here tomorrow? Irrelevant… Instead of dwelling on a single obstacle, I had to withdraw for now and expand the area of my investigation. Wishing to do just that, I tried to walk away, however, I had been unexpectedly obstructed by something bumping into my lower half. Instinctively, my body entered a battle stance, but when I moved my hand on the height of my stomach, my fingers didn't encounter any wounds which would indicate I had been attacked. Relieved, I gazed below to see what happened. Fortunately, it was only a kid in soccer shirt and matching shorts of some Lastation team I wasn't familiar with. Though it barely had an impact on me, the child bounced off my armor and fell backwards on the ground.  
"Are you okay?" I asked out of curtesy, reaching to help him stand up. In spite of my good will, the boy didn't take me up on this offer and with a terrified expression on his face, stared at me for a couple of seconds. Then, he jerked back and like if he was jumping out of boiling water, escaped, leaving behind only a couple of red drops.  
"Hey, wait up!" Once I realized it was blood, I called out to him again, but the kid was already nowhere in sight. Damn it. That couldn't have been a coincidence. Just because I allowed myself to be momentarily distracted, I spectacularly wasted such a golden opportunity and in addition to that, the onlookers began to notice my presence. I better hurry… I accelerated, however, it seemed that it was already too late.  
"Oh, look! He really came." Before I had a chance to flee from the scene I was discovered by Neptune and the other CPUs who ambushed me from the side. There was no point in trying to run now, which led me to a one, hurtful conclusion – my plans were genuinely fucked.  
"I did." Saying that, I placed a cigarette in my mouth and then, lightened it up.  
"Ugh… Put that thing down. It reeks unbearably!" Noire snapped at me angrily.  
"No can do." There was no time to explain the circumstances of my new habit, so I pushed straight to the topic. "Now, tell me what's going on."  
"What's with this attitude? Have you heard of something like manners?"  
"Lay back, Uni. He's here to help. An additional pair of eyes won't hurt, I guess." Surprisingly, the goddess of Lastation sided with me. On the side note, though she was trying to put on a strong front, her mental exhaustion was rather evident, having a visible impact on the condition of her skin and the fact her eyes were slightly bloodshot.  
"Sure. But ya know, we kinda should bring this talk elsewhere. Actually, I think that pictures are sometimes way more effective than words…" As Neptune scratched her cheek, her sister trembled.  
"Please, can I stay here? I don't want to go there again…" Her pleads were answered as soon after, she and Uni stayed behind when I was led inside of the crime scene, exactly like I wished from the start.

Although it turned out that I was right, I still underestimated what awaited me in one of the apartments of that block. Describing it as a bloodbath was an understatement. Maybe I wasn't bothered by the gruesomeness of the sight, however, once I saw it, I could understand why Nepgear reacted with fear on the idea of returning to this place. But let's concentrate on the incident. There were two victims: male and female, both in their early 20s, but without a police report I would have had a harder time finding even that out. The corpses had been brutally mutilated with countless stabbing wounds, limbs, on the other hand, were severed with clean cuts. Whoever did it, they must have really known what they were doing as none of the wounds were inflicted post mortem, which gave quite a lot about the killer's personality. To summarize their profile, an obvious psychopath, who enjoyed making others suffer most likely for fun, unless there was something I didn't understand from this particular positioning of bodies. The torso of the female was raised into standing position with her arms severed and somehow glued to her head together with man's, in a fashion reminding a helicopter. Male's legs were functioning as an additional support while the rest of his corpse was at woman's back for who the hell knew what reason. Frankly, I lacked any idea how to comment on it, however, these bindings were without a doubt, a major lead. I discovered faint traces of magic in them, although those readings were faintly distinguishable and unfamiliar to me. Could it be that we had another disturbed visitor from a different dimension? At this point I wouldn't be shocked if there was more us, residing in Gamindustri even prior to my appearance, but well, I shouldn't be thinking about that right now. Since I obtained all what I could from here, I decided to move towards the next urgent matter and without saying goodbye to the goddesses, I wandered off in my own direction.

As I figured out, looking for that kid from earlier was utterly pointless like searching for a needle in haystack, as he must have already managed to sink into the depths of Lastation. That was why all I could do, was to explore and hope to overhear or witness something interesting which could be linked to the case. That could have been a very wishful thinking, nonetheless, I was confident such an event would pop up on my path eventually. The killer wouldn't hide forever. Sooner or later, they were going to take action, allowing me to hunt them down and even if they didn't, I would figure it somehow. How though? I pondered, combing through my hair. Since I didn't know how the victims were being selected, there was little I could do about it. In the end, the murders couldn't have been spontaneous if all of them, including two previous incidents, took place in victims' apartments. My inability to pinpoint it was making me feel highly irritable. There had to be some kind of a connection or a pattern. Think… Just think… Or could it really be a perfect crime? No, as such did not exist, or, to be more precise, its effects were never discovered by anyone, therefore, there was no one to call it crime in the first place. Here, we had corpses, as if the culprit wanted them to be seen. That could be either a sign of cockiness, a message that 'no matter what you do, you won't catch me', actually wishing to be caught or many more. A criminal mind often worked in the least rational ways, so with scarce answers and still raising number of questions, I shouldn't assume too much. At the moment I firmed my resolution to focus on the investigation, the surrounding me noise faded, being replaced by a faint sound of bells. I stopped, attempting to locate the source of this sound. There was something ominous to it, making me shiver, though only for a second until I reminded myself whom I had become. Unlike the past me, the current I had no reason to be afraid, more to that, it was the opposite party which should have been terrified. Yet, what was with this feeling? My mind was racing, remembering all of the most unpleasant memories. Even though the sound of these bells didn't last more than a while, for some strange reason I couldn't help but to feel reduced to nothing upon hearing them and that state only worsened when they rang out again, this time further from my location.

I looked around. All of the people besides me were frozen like statues. It seemed that I found what I sought as that could definitely be counted into the category of suspiciousness, so I rushed to follow the signal. The more I ran, the more I had an impression of being amateurishly led into a trap. Regardless of that, I was sure my skills could overcome anything standing in my way. Curiously, the scent of magic from the crime scene intensified, meaning I was undoubtably tracking the killer. Although I wasn't certain it would be that simple, I still had to risk it and enter the empty street from where I last heard the bells. A dead end? There was only one entrance to the old apartment house, so using the fact it was open, I stormed inside. And again bells… As I walked up the staircase, another sound joined them, creating a rather unsettling atmosphere. Though muffled, it was an incredibly melodic female voice, coming from the third floor.  
"_London Bridge is falling down,__falling down, falling down.__London Bridge is falling down,__my fair Lady._"  
Each of the phrases was accompanied by a sequence of stabbing noises and hysterical giggling.  
"~_Build it up with blood and flesh,__blood and flesh, blood and flesh.__Build it up with blood and flesh,__my fair Lady…_" In this horrific setting it was easy to slowly lose own sanity. Even I couldn't fully resist this aura of overwhelming malice, which was getting stronger and stronger with each step I took towards the half open door. Soon I was about to unveil the identity of the murderer, whose appearance caused a disturbance in my plans. The adrenaline in my veins reached its peak as I slowly entered inside.

The scene in front of my eyes was even more gory than the one, effects of which I witnessed at Shifting Estate. Red was everywhere, staining the walls and ceiling in senseless random patterns, luring me into the epicenter of this chaos.  
"~_Blood and flesh will wash away, wash away, wash away. Blood and flesh will wash away, my fair Lady._" In the middle of the living room there was a woman, continuously stabbing a body of an unknown victim, but once I stomped on the threshold, she stopped, raising her head. She was wearing an orange jacket with white accents and a row of small golden bells hanging from below of her sleeves, plus a pair of similarly stylized pants. From under of her matching jester hat, her short, intensively purple hair was sticking out.  
"There is someone here. I can smell them… Oh, such a wonderful bloodlust…" Laughing maniacally she stood up, accompanied by another portion of ringing bells. Since she seemed to be aware of my presence there was no reason to hide, so I openly confronted her. "And they can see us, can't they? Can't they? What should we do, Saffy? Can it be that our fair lady finally arrived or should we kill them before they kill us? I wonder."  
Saffy? To whom was she talking to? The answer was simpler than I anticipated.  
"Yes, you have to, my dear. Being dead is no fun. You can't play if you are dead." The killer responded to herself in a theatrically deepened voice while shaking the green-handled knife in her hand.  
"Don't ignore me. Turn around so we can discuss some things." I urged her.  
"Alright then. If they want to talk, we should talk to them, right, Saffy? Am I right?" And so, she did as I asked, erratically moving her head in my direction. Because of that I was able to see her face, or rather, I would have been if she wasn't wearing a white mask with hollow eyes and widely opened mouth.  
"Who are you?" A blunt question from me. Even though she assumed I was hostile, until I learn more about her, I wished to remain neutral.  
"Who am I?" She repeated intently, like if she was dazed by being asked about her name.  
"No! Don't tell them that, Jess. That's gotta be a trap!"  
"Aaaah, stupid Saffy. They can hear you too, dummy. Now you've sold me out, so what next?"

Alright, I already realized this exchange between Jess and Saffy was getting out of hand. Whichever of these was her real name, I wasn't sure, however, as a matter of fact I could tell this woman's psyche was completely warped. Though I had my hopes up for a moment, now I was convinced she was beyond any control, so reasoning with her wouldn't work.  
"Hey, person standing there, do you like to have fun? Because Jess does. She can show you how to bring smile to this sullen face of yours." Suddenly the killer addressed me and without giving a chance to react, she slashed the air with her knife, aiming on my eyes. Since I managed to dodge, the blood in which it was soaked sprayed only the parts my outfit. Before I could do anything else, Jess was already close to me. I managed to parry her kick in the last possible moment, attempting to counterattack, however, I was still unable to reach her. The speed and agility in which she repositioned herself was superior to anything I had ever seen, like if she wasn't actually moving, but rather, blinking from a spot to a spot. That was why I had to rethink my strategy. Even though my sheer destructive power was absolutely far greater than hers, as long as I wasn't able to take advantage of it, nothing would change in this fight. For that reason, while pretending to concentrate on the defense, I sneaked a fire spell aimed at the apartment's floor, but even with that done, it wasn't going to be that easy.

Jess wasn't giving me any room to breathe with her rapid attacks. Since her set of moves was too chaotic, I didn't recognize her style as any of the martial arts I heard of, but that didn't necessarily cross out this idea. Even though both the song and the names she used sounded familiar to me, I shouldn't assume anything more than I see with my own eyes.  
"You are not originally from this world?" I ducked to avoid another of her kicks, whose speed was as impressive as deadly, and directly following it slash of a knife. My enemy did not seem to lose any of her stamina, more to that, her constant blows were somehow getting stronger and stronger. They weren't still something what could threaten me; however, I would rather not find out if I was wrong.  
"See, Saffy? You were right. He's too smart. We've gotta kill him!" I could only guess whether it was her indirect way of answering or if some of her inner thoughts were leaking out, but that didn't matter as she finally managed to fall into my trap. Having dueled Jess' long enough, I spotted a tendency to always withdraw her leg in the exact same way as she extended it, therefore, I gained a huge leverage over the battlefield. Thanks to that I succeeded to predict the position of her limb during the next sequence of her kicks, grasping her ankle.  
"Jess, you were careless!" She let out a shocked gasp in her Saffy voice, but before she could shake off, I treated her with electricity, then threw her into the kitchen. Right when the time limit ended, marked by a large explosion of gas stoves, which shook the building at its core, however, even with that I noticed Jess vanished right before she was caught in the blast. I, on the other hand, wasn't that lucky.

"Dammit. What a pain…" I sighed, getting up from the stone pavement and shaking off the debris from my armor. The eruption sent me off in a random direction, but fortunately, I took no lasting damage. Since the whole building had become smithereens and, it was only a matter of time until the fire department and the police would have been called in by the onlookers, therefore, perhaps it was a wise decision to disappear from the area before any of it could happen. With departure in mind I turned around, only to find two stray police officers standing there. They were staring at me with fright in their eyes, their guns aimed in my direction.  
"Ah, sorry about that. I nearly caught the murderer though." I playfully shrugged my shoulders, trying to lighten up the mood more than I already did, however, it seemed that it backfired.  
"Don't move! You are under arrest for the act terrorism." One of them blurted out to me. Geez… Were accusations seriously the first thing which came into their skulls right after finding a survivor of an explosion? Have some sensibility, damn it… I guessed I had no other choice.  
"Thank you, but I'll pass. Since you guys are so incapable, somebody else has to catch the culprit. Nothing personal…" I said and dashed forward. Before they even realized I moved, I crashed their heads against each other, knocking them unconscious. "Sleep well, I shall take care of the rest." I said in a low voice. Now that I had actually met my target, it was only a matter of time, however, I didn't have much of it. I had to hurry before the society would brand me as a villain, which would be sincerely annoying.  
"Congratulations, it seems that I will take on your gamble." I dropped the burning pieces of the invitation, which I found in my pocket after that kid bumped into me, deciding to meet with the person hiding under the initials of SO.


	5. Chapter 5 The smiling shadow

**Chapter 5. The smiling shadow**

Some kinds of risks involved putting own skin at stake while other doing it with multiple lives, however, which of these two was to bring more benefit to the individual if he succeeded, it was never possible to guess. This uncertainty must have been the very spirit of gambling, thrilling countless people to do it on a daily basis. Personally, I disapproved of blindly endangering oneself when triumph wasn't guaranteed, but in the current situation, giving up to the temptation and spinning the wheel of fortune was in my opinion, the best course of actions to stop Jess – the murderous jester, who continued her spree in Lastation.  
"Do you think she will come?" A seemingly middle-aged man, today in a brown suit and a tie with steering wheel pattern, changed the hand in which he held his reinforced iron suitcase, stroking his shaved clean chin. He was the one with whom I met yesterday and though he introduced himself to me as Smith Okunohito, I didn't think it was his real name. Because of that I didn't fully trust him, although I still betted on his alleged intel on Jess and his connections, which allowed me to prepare something rather incredible, given the time I had.

We were currently hiding behind the VIP box of the giant circus tent.  
"She will. Her pride as the goddess is too high to abandon these people to die. I sent a threat letter to the Basilicom and she didn't abolish the event, so she will definitely come to protect them." At least that was what my psychological portrait of Noire suggested.  
"Only a genius could have come up with such a horrific plot. I was right to set my sights on you." Smith clapped.  
"Don't mock me, asshole. Silence. Someone is coming here." I urged him to shut up and holding my breath in, focused on listening.  
"Alright. But don't stay out there for too long. The show is about to start and we need to be on the lookout!" One person entered the osier. It was no one else than Noire. Before she had a chance to sit down, I emerged from the curtain and covering her mouth, I smoothly pulled her into our hideout.  
"Calm down. It's me." I whispered to her ear. Since I managed to capture her without raising attention, I'd prefer if she didn't blow our cover now. Thankfully though, once her brain registered my voice, she stopped fighting back, so I could slowly let her go.  
"Michael? What the heck are you doing here? I heard that you…" Well, I had a good idea what she meant, but then, Smith interrupted her.  
"Greetings, the goddess of Black. I pray you are in good health." He politely bowed.  
"Who is that? Can you finally tell me what's going on? I don't have much time as…"  
"You might be right, you might be wrong, however, as for now it shall be enough to say he's our ally in pursue of the killer. Sorry for the rough treatment, but we need to ask you for your cooperation." And so, I explained the situation to her.

"Of course, I'd like to help since you guys have a plan, though there are far more important matters. I need to be out there to protect my people or did you think about that too?" She stubbornly looked for problems. As she couldn't simply wait for me to give all of the details, a part of me wished to tell her off for that, but instead, I impatiently pointed on Smith.  
"Watch and you will make up your mind." Okunohito seemed to understand my intentions as he opened his briefcase with a metallic clack. Not showing its interior to us, he moved some things in there, sporadically gazing on the goddess' face and eventually, he put on a glass mask. When he did that, droplets of paint of various colors and shapes began to spread on the surface of his body.  
"Seriously?!" Noire must have been unaware how low her jaw dropped as she stared in shock at the results of the transformation.  
"What? Are you so impressed just because of an easy magic trick or is it my perfection which casted such an impression on you?" Smith, now a perfect look-a-like of CPU Black Heart in her human form, crossed his hands on his chest and grinned proudly. Seeing how perfectly he managed to adapt to the role I couldn't help but to let out a small chuckle.  
"Hey, don't go too ahead of yourself! Who allowed you to use my appearance!" Before the real goddess could start to throw threats left and right, I gently placed my hand on her shoulder. Like I predicted, the notion of it made her stop due to the embarrassment.  
"Noire… Only a fool would think of him as you. Everyone who saw you at least once will quickly notice the lack of breathtaking beauty and cuteness." No matter how cheesy it sounded, it appeared to me as a super effective hit as Noire's cheeks flushed red, making her stumble with her words.  
"C-c-c-cute?! Know some shame pervert, womanizer, cheep…" Despite the fact she was obviously content to receive compliments, she began a chain of offenses directed at me at the end of which, she tried to slap me, however, I stopped her hand.  
"Very well, have fun, you two lovebirds. I shall take my leave as my people are waiting for me." Taking advantage of Noire's focus on me, Smith-Noire walked out, leaving us alone in a poorly illuminated room.

Once she finally cooled down a little, I suggested.  
"We should be going too. It would be a problem if somebody discovered the two of you at once."  
"Are you sure it's a good idea? You know, I am a face of this nation, so I can't have anyone doing weird stuff while pretending to be me. Not to mention, there are other things against it."  
"Don't worry. He won't be found out or do anything strange. If he wanted to use you like that, he would have already messed up your whole country long time ago. Now, let's hurry to the lower level." I announced, however, it seemed that Noire had one more issue.  
"But how? There's only one way out of VIP section, so since you say it would be problematic if we were seen, there's no way." Geez… I was about to get to that part, so thank you for your patience. Loudly exhaling, I opened a hidden passage in the floor with a ladder leading below the main stage.  
"I prepared for that. This circus changed its owner recently and we modernized it a little."  
"I see… Wait! I'll go first!" She suddenly reacted nervously, rushing towards the pit. I guessed she was afraid I would peek under her dress if I were to descend first or something like that, but her fear was unreasonable. As it wouldn't change anything, I allowed her to do as she pleased and when she made it to the very bottom, I dropped down, closing the trapdoor behind me.

"Everything set?" I stepped past Noire, addressing the man in rugged, brown sorcerer's robes, who being busy with the machinery, didn't notice our arrival.  
"Ah, you are already here, sir? Please forgive me. Anyway, I've just finished. The power of explosion was always my forte." Gilbert Montesquie raised his thumbs up. Luckily, after I managed to heal him from vampirism, he lost that weird accent and changed that ludicrous outfit, becoming more or less a normal person. To repay me for saving him, he vowed to become me servant.  
When he spotted Noire, he dropped on his knee and added, lowering his head with two fingers attached to his forehead.  
"It is a great honor to make acquaintance, Lady Black Heart." That had to be some kind of a court procedure in his land, but as there was no time for such unneeded curtesy, I decided to butt in.  
"We're going to detonate the arena once the killer shows up. She won't be able to resist so much of happiness in one place."  
"Detonate?! So, you lied to me. I won't let you harm any of the gathered just to catch one criminal!"  
"That's why I brought you here." I bit my lip in annoyance and touched the greenish ball on the central pedestal, which upon the contact with my skin filled with dark smoke.  
"This is an artifact I found on one of my journeys. It contains an incredibly powerful defensive skill, although it requires immense magical potential to be used." Gilbert pretty much summarized how this tool worked.  
"All I need you to do, is to keep your hands on its surface while thinking of all of the people of Lastation and no one would lose even a hair if I were to nuke this town. Well, besides the four of goddesses I think I am the only one who can activate it, so that should give you the full picture." I wouldn't let Neptune even ten steps from this artifact and other CPUs were not an option. Noire must have realized it as well. Giving me the last dubious look, she finally agreed.  
"It's hard to believe it, but I don't think you're lying. Fine. I'll give you a hand. On one condition though. Tell me everything regarding the case." She demanded. It wasn't anything top secret, so I nodded.  
"Have you done more research on the connections between victims?" Judging from her reaction, she didn't see it, therefore, I delivered the missing part. "All of them worked in entertainment industry. A stand-up duet, internet streamer, guitarist… The killer targets people who make others happy, to put in simpler words. As for her identity, it is a young female, probably in her early 20s if not less, dressed in a jester-ish manner, not exactly in the stable state of mind. I fought with her, but she escaped in the last moment, however, thanks to that I managed to learn more about her and I can assure you, she's not someone you can compete with. From the collected data I'm unsure if she's even human, as the source of her power is impossible to define. I wouldn't go as far as to assume she's a rouge subject of human experimentation, however, there is little normal about her."  
"For real? I guess that would make sense if you put it this way... Nonetheless, as I said, I'm going to trust you, Michael. Don't disappoint me or I'll make you regret it!" Surprisingly, Noire arrived to a proper conclusion faster than I predicted.  
"Very well then, both of you, get to your positions. It's starting."

The event in circus arena was scheduled to last approximately three hours. As the new owner I took the privilege of changing the program a little, so it would be gradually raising excitement of the audience until the peak of clown performance, which marked the start of the last hour. The choice wasn't coincidental as it purposefully left an opening for Jess, inviting her to blend into the troupe, because according to Smith, she wouldn't resist to join the performance to prove she's the best at bringing smiles to people as she believed herself to be. This way, I also diminished a possibility of her going on a killing spree from a random spot, gaining an open space for the duel.  
"Will this really work out?" Though she was trying to hide it from me, Noire was still not convinced. On the side note, the protection ball was milky white with her as the conduct.  
"Yes. Stay vigilant." I reminded her and gazed up. Judging from the sounds above, animal tamers were wrapping up their show, meaning, the moment of truth was getting close.  
"Brrr… Is it just me or did it become chilly out of sudden?" Noire observed.  
"Lady Black Heart is right. This cold is somehow abnormal. It has to be magic!" Though Gilbert could feel it too, I still didn't understand what they were talking about. For me, the temperature was identical than it was a couple of seconds ago. Still, I sensed the energy in the air, however, what could it be, I had no clue as of yet.  
"Don't get distracted." I reprimanded them. Was that Jess' doing? Did she have another ace in her sleeve we weren't aware of, or did we lure out someone using her? I could sense her getting closer… Once that thought crossed my mind, familiar sound of those wicked bells rang out.

"This is it. Count to fifteen and then detonate!" Both of my allies sensed the gravity of the situation from my tone.  
"Understood, sir."  
"And you, what are you about to do?"  
"Isn't it obvious? I'll go upstairs and defeat the murderer." At the same moment I answered Noire, the crowd went silent. Shortly after, the ground shook, so using this as a distraction, I jumped up through the hatch to the upper level.

A thick layer of smoke enveloped the circus tent, reducing the visibility for regular humans from the audience to zero. Though panicked voiced could be heard, most of the crowd still believed it was a part of the demonstration, however, I concentrated on searching for Jess. She was close, very close… I casted that nameless spell to slow down my awareness of time, but it seemed not to make much difference as a dead body was thrown at me with a force of a wrecking ball. I didn't need to look up to know it was one of the clowns or rather, Smith's mercenaries, who were used as meat shields. They didn't come from Lastation, so their deaths didn't break my deal with Noire, thus I simply cut the corpse in half with Erebus and stepped through the fountain of blood.  
"_~The itsy-bitsy spider crawled up the spinal spout. Down came the red rain, and washed the spider out._" Another of the nursery rhymes terribly defiled by her… Jess seemed to not be aware of my presence yet as she licked the edge of her blade and chuckled, her whole body trembling intensively. I didn't intend to let such a perfect chance for a sneak attack go to waste, so aiming at Jess' heart, I charged in her direction, however, I wasn't able to predict what happened next.  
"~Oopsie! Jess is so clumsy that she falls down while standing, right, Saffy?"  
"Nope, those were your amazing instincts! Once you sensed danger, you ducked. Wow, you're the best!" Although her stats were already ridiculously high before, it appeared that they had been boosted somehow, which allowed her to dodge by tripping on her own. Once she stood up and rubbed her butt, she gazed at me and then, added.  
"That person. He missed good ol' Jess and Saffy, didn't he? Too bad we are busy and can't play with him."  
"That's right. We have an important mission to find someone and kill them, so don't be mad at us. Jess is a good girl, I promise." An assassination? Though that was definitely an intriguing piece of news, I didn't care about her target, who must have been the goddess of this nation.  
"First, you need to get through me." I slashed Erebus twice while crossing Jess' path. One of the shockwaves cracked the floor, removing all obstacles, smoke included, on its way towards my opponent, who rolled to the side, avoiding a sure kill right before it could hit her.  
"Ooof… Even Mr. Hat fell off. Please be nice and wait a moment." She said and after placing the mentioned item back on her head, she combed her purple hair, which even in such environment was unexpectedly smooth and silky.  
"We have to get rid of him, Jess. Or the target will escape!"  
"Fast!" She shrieked, closing the distance on me in a blink of the eye. She stabbed from below with her knife, but I caught the weapon barehanded. Though it was sharp enough to pierce through my gloves and flesh, I didn't feel any pain. In return, I punched at her throat, however, all my fist encountered was air as abandoning her knife, Jess vaulted over my head, wrapping both of her slender legs around my neck and began to choke me. Her lock was perfect, but I wasn't a regular foe, who would stand no chance against it. Without losing any of my composure I squeezed her feet, breaking her bones and sending a freezing spell through it. Jess, who must have understood my plan didn't wait long to slide of me, landing with a hiss in safety.

"He's good, Saffy. It hurts, but there's no escape. Is there anything more we can do? Saffy? Where are you, Saffy?!" Jess screamed. Judging from her tone, the inevitable defeat was cracking her mentality even further. Though my intuition suggested that was the end; I couldn't be that optimistic as a fresh portion of energy seemed to enter her body.  
"YOU?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SAFFY?! GIVE HER BACK! GIVE HER BACK RIGHT NOW!" She continued to yell louder and louder as her voice began to lose its normal harmony. Since I quickly understood that something strange was going on with her, I managed to protect myself with a barrier when a barrage of crimson projectiles shot in my direction. Once it calmed down, I saw two shiny red wings grew out of Jess' back.  
"**GIVE HER BACK! GIVE HER BACK!**" This time I could see the manner of the attack better. These wings fired at me a large quantity of sharp shards and the more of them were used, the more apparent the pulsing veins were on Jess. Whatever she was doing, it was gradually consuming her, so at this moment I could stop fighting, waiting for her to kill herself, however, that wasn't granted too, therefore, it was now or never. Deflecting a portion of missiles, I rushed at her head on, simultaneously sending a fireball above. Previously I crushed the concrete block, placed there for this very reason, with the second shockwave of Erebus, so now I only removed the safety blockade, allowing the mass of debris to fall down. Right before it was about to burrow Jess, I reached her and grabbing her by the mask, I pulverized her to the floor.

It seemed that I kind of overdid it… Just to be sure I eliminated the target, I jumped after her into the drop site and because of that, my back ached a tiny bit. Well, I should be thankful it wasn't more than that, as I could have been killed on spot if I was less fortunate. So, what about Jess? I freed myself from all that lied on me and gazed below.  
"Holy shit. I'm an idiot…" I couldn't help but to hit myself once I realized a major flaw of my actions, which should have been clear from the beginning – unintentionally though, yet it didn't change the fact I shielded Jess from most of the rubble, besides one metal pole which pierced her chest. Eh… On the other hand, not like it mattered much. She had been successfully neutralized, being rendered unconscious, so I was able to finish the job with no further difficulties. But before that, there was something I wished to check, a mere curiosity sparked by a selfish desire. Whom she was and why she became like this, I would never learn. Same went for the power she demonstrated at the end, however, I still could do one thing – see her face, so I quickly brushed off the remains of her mask, glad I thought of it as what I witnessed underneath made me gasp in astonishment.

It was Charlie. Although her skin was now in healthier complexion and her hair wasn't white, there was no way I made a mistake. Why? …! My vision suddenly blurred as numerous images flashed in front of my eyes. They were chaotic, lacking of other colors than crimson, but as the static noise was increasing, making me feel like if my head could explode any moment, I wasn't able to concentrate well enough to distinguish more that simple pictures. I couldn't… No! Get your shit together. I reprimanded myself, but it was useless. My body rejected all of the impulses with which I tried to influence it. Was I really going to fail like that? The girl was slowly opening her eyes, so if the wound wasn't fatal, she would be able to slay me effortlessly and return to the mastermind, whose identity I should have figured out from the start. Though I couldn't understand her plan at this point, Sylvette sent her to me with that objective, didn't she? When that thought crossed my mind, my back had been impaled with several pointy objects.  
"Isn't she just so dang cute?" Speaking of the devil, Sylvette showed up as well, ambushing me from behind.  
"Ha, good to see you. It happens that I had a business with you anyway."  
"You did? I'm all ears, sweetie, however, work comes first, sadly…" Whatever she did to me, the pain was unbearable, preventing me from moving or even thinking clearly, so the most I could do was to watch as Charlie had been swallowed by shadows and disappeared. "If I were you, I wouldn't try anything funny. You know how much I love you, so I don't want to damage you more than the situation requires it." Sylvette was serious. I could feel that even if already didn't, on my own skin.  
"You were the one who ordered her to do that, right?"  
"Geez… Even if I were to say no, you wouldn't believe me, so I'm not going to answer that. You have softened. The old you would have killed her without considering it twice, once the opportunity presented itself. That indecisiveness will kill you soon, my dear and I don't want that to happen."  
"The fact that you attacked me means a lot about your credibility. Tell me, what are you plotting?" I demanded, hiding my growing weakness.  
"I'm not plotting anything, silly. Anyway, it's not like you have any faith in me left… Unfortunately, I know that you will pursue me no matter what I do, so for the sake of both of us, I had to slow down you a little. No hard feelings. Don't worry, you will live, probably." Having said that, she vanished without a notice.

"Damn it!" For some strange reason my healing magic didn't work on the injuries inflicted by Sylvette. That bitch… She must have poisoned me. As wounds were located in rather problematic places, I had to stop bleeding soon, so I crawled towards the closest erect object, carefully making sure I didn't overstretch. Fuck! I let out a pained scream as I struggled to slightly raise my position. Though my hands were badly shaking, I began to undo my armor.  
"Hello? Is anyone here? Shout if you can, we're coming with help." Even though my senses were barely holding up, I heard Purple Heart's voice calling out. It seemed that I would have to rely on others if I wanted to survive.  
"Over here! And get some bandages if you can." Pushing myself for that, I shouted out. It didn't take long until the rescue party arrived.  
"Michael? Is that you? My goodness… We need to bring him to a doctor. Bring stretches, fast!" Neptune knelt next to, ordering someone around.  
"No, I can tend to it alone. Just help me take off the armor and disinfect it. I've been through worse, trust me." As long as internal organs were intact, the surface wound was the only issue as even the poison could wait. Sylvette claimed she didn't mean to kill me; therefore, it couldn't be anything lethal.  
"Got it. I'll bring a medkit!" The second person, Nepgear, volunteered.  
"That looks very bad. What happened?"  
"That was a trap. Might have killed the murderer, though I'm unsure. Now, give me your side of the story and be careful. I don't want to dry out of the blood in a place like this." With Neptune's assistance it went easily to remove my gear without taking more damage than it was necessary.  
"We were trapped by some force after the explosion. We've got separated from Noire, but Uni is fine and she's currently trying to settle things down until we find her sister. Are you sure, you can handle it?"  
"Good thing I always keep casual clothing under the armor. Sleeves of my shirt should be fine. Use them to wipe out the blood. Don't pressure the skin though."  
"I'll try…" Lacking confidence, Neptune did as she was asked.

Once Nepgear finally returned with proper equipment, first aid became a piece of cake, so it didn't take much time before I was able to walk again, although with the support of both of the goddesses. Like that we managed to reunite with the rest our allies. When the arena collapsed, Gilbert protected Noire and because of that, there had been no casualties, for now, that was, as today's battle was just a prelude to something bigger. Crushing Sylvette was currently the number one priority for me, but before that, we had to return to Planeptune to regroup as I would be in no condition for further battles for a good while.


	6. Chapter 6 God of death

**Chapter 6. God of death**

Failure is said to be the best teacher; however, its educational methods were usually harsh as I recently learned about it from the first hand. As it had been a good while since I last experienced loss, dealing with it turned out to be surprisingly troublesome. My confidence received a powerful hit and though a part of me wished to take revenge for it as soon as it was only possible, all I could do was to bit my lip in frustration as our party walked through the main gate of Planeptune City.  
"It's too quiet. I hope nothing bad happened here as well…" Nepgear shared her pessimistic vision with tears in her eyes. Lately she had stomping on a thin line, so I decided to watch over her just in case.  
"Shush, don't even jinx it. I bet there's a huge discount on ice creams somewhere. Aaah, that's not helping either. Now I'm hungry. Pudding flavored ice creams…" Neptune drooled, falling deeper into the world of fantasies, only to be interrupted a second later, as I picked up something worrying from this seemingly silent environment.  
"A voice… We should hurry."  
"But where?!" Ignoring goddesses' questions, I headed towards the source of the disturbance, so having no other choice, the rest of the company followed.

"You're the worst kind of scum. At least show some…" Parts of an emotional outburst reached my ear once I made it to the Market Square. A crowd of onlookers was gathered here already, but that didn't mean much to me as I walked through it like an icebreaker. "Trash who trample one's heart doesn't deserve to live. What gives you a right to treat feelings of that woman like an object of your greed? Answer me! For whom do you take yourself?!" In the middle of this I discovered Sparrow aiming his gun in a fury at some man, who was on his knees. If it wasn't just a play of lights, he even pissed himself. "Not so brave while facing a stronger than you, huh? I promised to protect this nation from any sort of a danger and I never take my word back. Let it be a public execution, I give no fuck, but if that's going to stop other pieces of shit from doing the same, better for them. Farewell, don't bother to rest in peace…" And so, Sparrow pulled the trigger.

"Explain it." I couldn't tell who was more shocked that the bullet hit the pavement instead of victim's head, Sparrow, or the man he tormented.  
"Why did you interfere?" Ultimate Hunter narrowed his eyes.  
"I'm not going to watch how you kill him without knowing why it's happening." Besides, I was interested in what made Sparrow, whose regular behavior was an individualistic mixture of calmness with slight silliness, to go to such extremes. "So, are you going to enlighten me?" I pushed him further. For a second Sparrow remained silent, like if hesitating, but in the end, he let out a frustrated sigh and gazed me right into eyes.  
"They were going to kidnap this woman. I overheard that garbage's meeting with his companions by a chance. He seduced her purposefully to lure her out." Was that all? I thought such things occurred every once in a while, so was it really a need for such contempt? Not like I was trying to justify the crime, however, things with common folk should be handled appropriately.  
"Capital punishment is not a solution." I raised the volume of my voice, so the onlookers would hear me loud and clear. "Don't take me wrong. I trust in your judgement, but there's an order we must keep in order to maintain the society as we know. This is not an anarchy. It's a land ruled by CPU Purple Heart, therefore, what will happen to the man you accuse of such a atrocious crime will be decided by her." With a perfect timing, Neptune emerged out of crowd, so I brought attention of the people to her.  
"Me?! I guess, I'm a goddess, hehe." Visibly embarrassed, she scratched her head and then, stepped out of the pillar of light in her CPU form, though what she proclaimed afterwards didn't exactly match with my expectations. "There ought to be a trial. For both of them." Citizens, on the other hand, were delighted to hear that. Cheering enthusiastically on their goddess, they temporarily forgot about anything else, which allowed Sparrow to escape in rage, murmuring something which sounded like 'you will see', although to whom it was directed, I didn't know. Of course, I could have stopped him with no issues, however, I purposefully neglected to take that action. Instead, I knocked the other guy unconscious with an open-handed strike. A shame that was, but I would have to think of a solution to this problem later.

Things liked to spiral out of control, so it was important to adapt to the ever-evolving scenery if you wanted to be victorious, thus I didn't let the situation with Sparrow get to me too much. Once I made sure that random petty criminal had been locked where was his place, I took a stroll to meet up with Gilbert and Smith, so we could discuss the matter of Sylvette and Jess-Charlie, or whatever her real name was, but just before I reached the destination, I encountered an unforeseen obstacle.  
"Michael! Missed you so much!" To my utter confusion, it was Charlie who tried to tackle from the side.  
"She patched you up quick, didn't she?" I whispered, preparing for a battle. I didn't want to cause more ruckus than I already did, so how should I handle this?  
"Are you mad? Sorry for scaring you, if I did." Charlie looked at me apologetically, her body language indicating she was as clueless as I was. On the side note, her appearance didn't reveal any signs of the recent fight.  
"Where were you?" Although I tried to conceal it, I was still cautious of her.  
"Uhm, my bad for not leaving a message, but Instructor suddenly asked me to come over to Leanbox. Yuki and Kurusu needed help with tidying up their place and I was the only available hand. Though it was kind of weird, I went there anyway." She didn't seem to be lying; however, I couldn't trust her. I knew what I saw. She and Sylvette were definitely my enemies, nonetheless, there was still something bothering me and perhaps, an additional pair of eyes would aid me to discover the truth.  
"I see. Mind to join me? I'm on the way to a business meeting."  
"Of course. I'd even go to the end of the world for you." Charlie immediately attached herself to me.

In that style, we eventually reached Fountain Park, which was probably the last place where one would think of having an important conversation as the area was rather popular. On the other hand, it was precisely the reason why I picked it, as plain sight could often be the best hiding spot. In the end, who normal would assume that serious matters would be handled in open? In reality, nothing which was about to be said was confidential, more to that, I partly hoped to be overheard, but let's not get into too much details as of yet. I quickly spotted Gilbert leaning on the fountain with his arms crossed and a young girl with spikey purple haircut impatiently sucking a lollipop next to him.  
"Sir, you've brought company." The master of explosions tilted his head. I told them everything what took place in the circus, but it seemed that both of my conspirators understood that I wanted them to play along now.  
"What took you so long? I don't have a whole day for waiting, you know?" Smith, in his new form, frowned.  
"Michael, who is that little girl, who acts like an old man?" Charlie gazed at me, without bothering to lower her voice.  
"Little girl?!" Ignoring his outburst, which was just a part of this role, I proceeded with what I intended to do here.  
"I'll introduce them soon, but first, Charlie, I need your assistance to realize something important. I'll ask you several questions and please, be as much frank as you can, even if it's going to put you in an unfavorable position."  
"Okay. I'll do my best." She swallowed heavily, visibly scared. I didn't think cornering her would take so little, but I was sure Sylvette still had an ace in her sleeve if she sent her back to me so fast.  
"When was the last time we've seen each other?"  
"Like five or six days ago, I guess. I missed you so much it felt like eternity…"  
"What were you doing then?"  
"Like I said, I was with Yuki and Kurusu. Their hotel had been wrecked and… Michael, don't tell me, you suspect me I could've done something like that?" Her eyes widened in disbelief.  
"And after that, did you return straight to Planeptune?" Upon hearing that, Charlie frantically backed a few steps away from me.  
"I… I…" She stuttered. Though I didn't look away from her, I felt gazes of Gilbert and Smith on me. They said nothing, yet I was sure they also noticed a small contradiction. With an intent of breaking through her lie, I stepped closer to Charlie, who stumbled in panic, falling back on the ground. As she lowered her head, I spoke up.  
"Just why do you assume I find you suspicious? If there's a guilt, that means there's something you're trying to hide, even though you agreed for absolute honesty. I'm not going to bother with confirming this story with those two as they aren't exactly the most credible either. Instead, I'll make you spill it out. Be it Charlie or whatever is your real name I cannot trust you. Not to mention, normally you wouldn't have any doubts on how long you were away from me." Not knowing myself what I wanted to do, I began to raise my hand at her, however, at that moment I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head, which caused my vision to black out.

Everyone in range froze at the sound of the gunshot. Some of the common people started to scream while others ran away, but in this chaos, eyes of Gilbert Montesquie and Smith Okunohito were locked on the man holding a freshly fired pistol.  
"I didn't mean… I only came to apologize. I swear!" Even the shooter was petrified by the effects of this work as he continued to make hysterical excuses, not looking away from the lifeless body of his victim. "My hand moved on its own when I saw her crying!" The bullet went straight through Michael Runcorn's skull. His blood and parts of brain tissue splattered around, mainly staining Charlie's face and her clothes.  
"M-Michael…? Michael?" With an empty gaze she desperately pleaded the corpse of her beloved, regardless of the tears, which were falling down her cheeks one after another, even more intensively than those few moments ago.  
"Such cowardice! How dare you, Sparrow? I shall make you pay for it!" Though Gilbert didn't understand the weapon which was used in the deed, he charged at the Ultimate Hunter, forgetting about the fact he could use magic. Or rather, he would, if he wasn't stopped by Smith from behind.  
"There's something off about it. We should…" Smith's advice didn't come to its conclusion as a powerful eruption of energy interrupted him, marking the appearance of a pillar of dark energy shooting up to the clouds.

"My, my. Even I did not predict such a possibility. Good grief…" When everything calmed down, he emerged out of the mist, breaking out his index finger.  
"Michael? You're not…?" Charlie stood up in shock, but she had been quickly hushed.  
"Yes, I am not dead, though it is not the one, to whom your heart belongs. I took over when I sensed danger and good thing I did or you people would have been in a serious peril." At this moment everyone noticed that both his hair and eyes turned black. "What? I guess you have not been acquainted with me yet. Feel free to address me as V, the primal god of death. This Michael kid and I have quite a history…" V explained, snapping his finger back to its original position. When he did that, the gun in Sparrow's hand disintegrated and V blinked towards him. "You have seen how he fought back then. That was not his real strength. I was barely letting him use mine. Yet, this kid managed to learn a lot, thus it would be a shame to have him die now. Do not think badly of me for what I am about to do. I will let him deal with you later." The speed in which V rendered Christopher Sparrow unconscious was impossible for others to follow. "You two, take him to the Basilicom." First, V ordered Gilbert and Smith, then, his sight laid on Charlie. "And you, come with me. Hurry."

Having no courage to refuse, everyone obediently listened to V's instructions. Charlie, who was the most puzzled by this sudden course of actions, meekly walked a step behind him as they marched along Planeptune's walls.  
"I am not going to pretend I know how you feel, but I will ask you to be strong. I understand that you are not familiar with the recent news from Lastation? They were the reason why that brat treated you like a pest." V broke the silence. Hearing no audible answer from Charlie, he continued. "But even a fool should have been able to notice it. In spite of the unquestionable resemblance on the physical ground, that murderous child had very little in common with you. I dare to say, she was an exact opposite of you, Charlie-girl." Even though she had no clue about what he was talking about, she carefully listened to each of his words, making sure to memorize as much as she could.  
"What do you mean? I bet that is inside of your thoughts right now. Well, to utilize the time efficiently, I will not divulge too much of information to you, as you may simply ask your cherished one or his accomplices later, however, I shall give you some of my observations. First, there was something ancient about her power. It is just a conjecture, although it is plausible that she is same as me and Michael. Something dangerous is sealed within her and unlike me, it is not stable. I doubt that was the end of her story, so be cautious, especially of this so-called Instructor."  
"Why her?" Charlie blurted out in surprise. To her, Sylvette was a motherly figure, though moody and somehow unpredictable, she took care of her for so many years that Charlie had a hard time to think of her as a villain.  
"Throughout the centuries I have seen many humans and that woman is perhaps the most callous one whom I encountered so far. What she displays publically is nearly on par with my power, but her real power is impossible to determine even for me. Heed my guidance, do not make light of her. Not you, not him, not anyone else. That is one reason why I brought you here with me. Charlie-girl, if you really do not want to lose him, you must stop him from going into an open war with Sylvette, at least for the time being. He is not ready to challenge her yet, even with my support and his new allies. By all means, they are plenty capable, but that will not be sufficient to take her down."  
"But how am I supposed to do that?" Charlie clutched her hands together at the height of her chest, but V didn't answer her. Instead, he stopped and with eyes filled with nostalgia, he gazed on the landscape.

"Last time I have been to this place, it was just a mountain with a couple of trees and look now. A whole town with the Basilicom. The world sure went forward, did not it? Humans are no longer weaklings, which need us, gods, in every aspect of their lives… What do you think? Should gods and goddess leave people to their own devices, or should they remain as idle objects of reverence, not because of the faith, but a custom?" Thinking of her response, Charlie watched for a moment how the wind flowed through V's hair, however, before she made up her mind, he let out a forlorn chuckle.  
"That was a rhetoric question. I appreciate your reaction though. You did not want to speak up until you could be sure what was about to come out of your mouth. Unfortunately, I believe that is something rare nowadays… Anyway, you are a quite interesting person, Charlie-girl. Despite the fact you usually behave rather childishly, there is much more to you, than probably even you know about." He turned around, focusing his eyes on hers as he slowly closed the distance between them.  
"Not afraid to stare death itself into its eyes? I am genuinely impressed. Those eyes of yours... They have seen much evil, have not they? Much more than anyone else's at your age, but it shaped you into a stronger being. Yes, now I see why I called you a polar opposite of that impostor earlier. All of the misfortune did not break you, like her. You are different, a girl with no place in this or any other world, yet born in this dimension. If there is someone who is able to stay at Michael's side, it has to be you, that is why, I must ask you a favor. Support him in better or worse, till the end of this story. Can you promise me that?"  
"Yes." Charlie's reply was instant, unshaken and filled with determination. "I will."  
Seeing that, corners of V's lips slightly rose, forming a smile.  
"Good. I like your resolve. In return, I shall give you the final reason why we came here alone and why I talk so much. You see, I cannot control his body for much longer. I guess even gods of death may grow soft… That wound would have killed him, so I used my power to stay like that until now. But it is about to end. I am growing weak and soon, I will be forced to sleep again. I pray you know what that will mean to your beloved. Though today might change him, leading to some unforeseen consequences, please, take care of him until he wakes up. The bullet has already been disposed of, so it should be safe. You are the only one I can trust to…" Before he finished his sentence, V's body went limp and dropped on Charlie. Struggling a bit with it, she eventually managed to move him towards the wall, where she sat down, positioning his head on her thigh.  
"But isn't it how the things always went, my dear?" She gently smiled, watching how the appearance of unconscious Michael was gradually returning to its former state.


	7. Chapter 7 The trial

**Chapter 7. The trial**

"Here, I brought you something to drink." As I slightly raised from the couch, Charlie warmly beamed, handing me a glass of water with a straw attached. How did it end up like this? I wish I knew. The last thing I remembered was dull aching of my head, after which my memory was blank. From what I was told, I was knocked down by Sparrow, although intuition was telling me there was more than that as something felt different, even if I couldn't name what.  
"If you need more, call me. I'll be in the living room, so you can just rest." Once I finished the drink, she did as she announced, leaving me to my own thoughts.

Chaos might have not been the best word to describe my current state of mind, however, there was still some accuracy to it. Ever since I woke up, everyone was happy to see me, treating like if I returned from a life-long journey, which made me wonder how much I was out of it, but no matter how many times I checked, it seemed as if I lost a single day. And that wasn't the worst part. What bothered me the most, was Charlie or rather, her behavior in particular. She… It was hard to explain, but I felt like if she… Hmm… Matured a little? Unexpectedly, she became caring, considerate and to be honest, that change was for me too much to handle at once. Though it wasn't like I had anything against it, I didn't know what to think about her anymore. Could Charlie and Jess really be the same person who was currently setting an elaborate trap around me, or did something big enough occur while I passed out, which had an impact on those feelings of hers, she used to mention constantly? Well, future would reveal all of the answers, so I should focus on a speedy recovery.

Due to the current frequency of challenging events, my body was showing first signs of being overstrained, therefore, I didn't have much choice, I had to lie low for a while or it could negatively influence my overall performance, so for the time being, I stayed together with Charlie in the apartment on Basilicom's upper level. Anyway, that didn't mean I was idle. As a matter of fact, I was busy with preparations to a battle, which comparing to the kind of my usual ones, was definitely rather uncommon.  
"The Codex of Criminal Law of Planeptune is surprisingly complicated." I commented under my nose, flipping over to the next page. Even though my oratory skills weren't that tragic, unless I gained specific knowledge, those assets had no value at the impartial courtroom. As Sparrow's trial was scheduled for the day after tomorrow and I insisted to be his defense attorney, I had to cram all of the material before that. Not like I complained about that. I was in my sickbed for less than a day and the boredom was already insufferable, so I was thankful for at least that to occupy myself. I let out a yawn, memorizing the content of the article 261b. Seriously, why there had to be such a number of laws? It wasn't practical in the slightest. Most of these should be revised, merged with other or even omitted to gain clarity, but never mind that now as a sound of knocking to the window took my mind from planning the future reforms of judiciary system.  
"Good evening. I hope you're doing well." Once I opened, Smith gracefully jumped off the windowsill, dusting off his suitcase.  
"You couldn't do it in a normal way, could you?" A bit resigned, I showed him to the table. "You said I should arrive unnoticed and I've done just that. More importantly, let's get down to the business." Sitting down on a chair cross-legged, he presented me with a file of documents. Inside of it I found several photos of a grey-haired woman in a burgundy suit. "Rei Mitsurugi. By many believed to be Gamindustri's top prosecutor. She will defend the other party, which somehow gained the status of the plaintiff." Smith explained as I was scanning through the list of her cases.  
"All of them are won. How curious such a renowned lawyer is suddenly going to requalify… I didn't take that guy to be wealthy. Do you have anything which may suggest her motivations?"  
"Supposedly, she volunteered in some sort of anti-false-accusations protest, but I believe that's rubbish."  
"So there are two of us then. I don't want to be a pessimist, however, a fat chance someone with such a perfect CV is going to be a person they claim to be. Her life seems so ideal that it's nearly obvious she's hiding some dirt." Of course, there was a possibility Mitsurugi was a rare case of a dreamer, who happened to be lucky and raised to the top, although the likelihood of it could be even less than 0.01 of the percent.  
"It's a matter of time before I find it. Regardless, if I may ask, why do you have to waste your time as a lawyer of that simpleton? Alternatives are countless and yet, you have surprised me again." I kind of could see why Smith was looking down on Sparrow. If they met, I was sure that the eccentric hunter left someone as methodical as Smith with an unfavorable first impression.  
"I have a hunch. Trust me or not, this is for the best." I avoided the question.  
"Very well then. Now about the other thing you requested…"

Once we ended our discussion, Smith departed in the same fashion as he entered. Though he had no good reason to help me, he stayed as my right-hand man, claiming that he was intrigued by my next actions. Whatever was his true goal, as long as he assisted me, I couldn't care less, yet in case of a potential betray, I had to be ready. Anyway, Charlie had been suspiciously quiet through the whole meeting. Since she didn't know about the expected visitor, I was sure she would come see what was going on when she heard voices. In the end, only a thin wall was separating us. I should check on her, just out of curiosity. I gently opened the door, peering inside, but no matter how much I searched, I couldn't grasp a single trace of her presence. The room was empty.

Morning, the first day of the official hearings in the case. What I had managed to shove into my head, was there, so there was nothing else left than to use it appropriately. Together with Charlie I arrived at the Supreme Court of Law, which was situated nearby the city center. Since it lacked outdoor facilities or additional upper floors, the size of its building was no way as impressive as the Basilicom, but it was still quite similar to it in terms of the design. The elevation was mainly bright purple with white accents, which created a net akin to all of these funky components at the surface of a Solid-State Drive. Inside, however, turned out to be less complicated than I'd imagine. Besides the two matching conference halls, there was only the courtroom itself and the underground custody, to which we were currently heading to see Sparrow.  
"I think I'll wait here for you." Sending me an awkward glance, Charlie suddenly stopped. I shrugged my shoulders and pushed the door of the hearing room open.

"You really came." Though he was evidently dazed by my appearance, Sparrow instantly greeted me from the other side of the room, separated by a layer of thick glass.  
"I did. Why wouldn't I?" I replied, noticing a shady looking officer near the wall behind my client. Maybe it should have been quite obvious there would be a witness to our seeing, but I didn't spot him at first glance as he was situated in the least illuminated part of the room.  
"Dunno. I'm sure there would be at least a bunch of reasons…" He snickered anxiously as I sat down in front of him.  
"We're going to face Rei Mitsurugi."  
"So I was told. Hey, is that bad or something? Everyone looks at me like if I was on my way to the death row." Of course, he had no idea about that woman, but that didn't matter.  
"Not really. Let them bark all they want. We are going to have the last laugh in the courtroom. Perhaps, there won't be even a need to bring THAT up to win."  
"That? If you have some kind of a secret weapon, you shouldn't…" Sparrow reacted defensively, turning over to our unmoving listener.  
"Can't say much before it actually starts. You know, a wise sage once said that speech may be silver, but silence is gold, so remember to give them only a bare minimum in your testimonies. I'll handle the rest. That's all. See you soon." Not waiting for anything else, I left the room, rather satisfied with the outcome of this visit.

Back on the corridor, the first thing which caught my attention was Charlie, who was carefully studying a vending machine at its end. On the side note, why was it there in the first place? Although such location didn't make much sense to me, it was pointless to consider it as important.  
"What are you doing?" Somehow, she became startled by this very ordinary question, hastily removing her hand out of machine's take-out port.  
"Oh, you're already done? I hoped to grab a snack or two, but I guess I have no luck, hah." She let out a disappointed sigh.  
"It's empty. There's still some time before the trial, so try upstairs. I've seen a similar device there too." Either it had to be a new machine or they forgot to resupply it, so nothing to worry about.  
"Will do. Thanks. Michael, I was wondering something…" Deep in thoughts, Charlie placed her index finger on her chin.  
"What?"  
"No, never mind. I'm overthinking stuff out of hunger. I'll go up ahead." Geez, don't bother me next time if you're not decided, I scolded her in my head, watching how the green ends of her jacket's Velcros vanished out of my sight. I was about to follow her, but at that moment a rumbling sound reached my ear. When I checked it out, I saw a certain item falling out of the vending machine.

It seemed that my initial observations weren't correct as I overlooked a small café joint in the left wing of Supreme Court's facility, where I reunited with Charlie. Who would have thought I was going to spent my time with her so eagerly? Frankly, my motivation was slightly less genuine than that, nonetheless, there was still a matter I wanted to verify with her.  
"Something on your mind? You seem to be awfully upset." I took a tiny sip out of the coffee cup, which had been just delivered to us by a waitress.  
"I'm fine." Quite obviously, she was making a good face over the bad game, however, I shouldn't pry for more details yet. Whatever she was hiding, she was likely doing it not to distract me from the trial, therefore, if her problem was serious enough for me to be involved, she would bring it once this whole ordeal was finally over, or so I at least deducted. Unless I was looking for something which wasn't there in the first place and she was just suffering from women's monthly issues.  
"If you say so." I shrugged my shoulders dismissively and after that little exchange, the two of us spoke next to nothing. As the time before the trial was slowly growing thin, maybe that was for the best as I could revise and Charlie, ease her nerves, if stress was one of the reasons of her tension. Although even that appeared to be beyond our reach, I observed, as the door of the café suddenly opened and a woman marched in, fixing the glasses on her nose.  
"Uh huh, she looks like a big fish." Charlie's remark was correct. That had to be our famed prosecutor, Ms. Mitsurugi, who must have happened to have a dry throat too. However, she didn't head towards the counter. Instead, Rei Mitsurugi arrived at our table and crossing her arms, she asked bluntly.  
"Are you that Michael Runcorn?" Judging from the tone of her voice, there could be only one goal for her presence here.  
"Maybe. Or maybe not. I have no obligation to introduce myself to an impolite stranger." Paying as little attention to her as I could, I drank once again.  
"Hmpf. That's why courtroom shouldn't be open to amateurs. I do not have the slightest clue who allowed you to participate in this trial, but save yourself embarrassment. Just go home." Wow, I didn't expect she would try to persuade me to drop out. So scary…  
"Actually, why don't you consider own advice? I'm a busy man, so I would apricate if I didn't have to waste the whole day on playing kindergarten lawyers. Hey, why don't we bet how long you can survive until your first defeat? I'm putting all of my money on less than ten minutes. How about you?" I glanced over to Charlie, who clapped her hands with a huge grin curling on her face.  
"Let's be optimistic. Maybe 15 minutes? Though you would have to give her a head start, I guess."  
"Laugh when you can. You will soon regret it." Mitsurugi spat out in fury, storming off from where she came, followed by the rows of curious eyes of the customers and staff.  
"Well, she is pissed off, that's for sure." My white-haired assistant commented when peace returned to the area. "Serves her right." I silently nodded in approval to that.  
"We should get going." Having finished my coffee, I pointed on the clock.  
"Ah, I nearly forgot. As the defense, you have to be earlier than others."  
"That's true." Without my interlocutor noticing it, I slipped a bent piece of paper under the cup's den and after paying, we departed to the main hall.

Since Purple Heart in person was participating in this trial, there was nothing uncommon in how much of attention it received. Because of that, even though there was still a bit to its beginning, the courtroom was already filled with audience to its full capacity. Ignoring all of the stares on me, I walked through the purple carpet with golden trimmings, which was situated between two columns of handsomely engraved wooden benches, eventually reaching the defendant's table on the left side of the room from the perspective of judge's sitting.  
"Man, if I didn't know you, I would've thought that I got the biggest weirdo in the area. Even freaking TV is here! You should have dressed into something more elegant." Was my armor not falling into this criterion in Sparrow's opinion? I had it repaired specially for this occasion.  
"Focus on the trial. The other party is whispering something about the plan, so we should do something of that sort too."  
"Nice idea. By the way, do you know who is the judge? I'm getting kind of anxious when I'm the only one behind…"  
"You will see. Though on one hand I'm familiar with her, on the other, she will be fully neutral. Especially since she returned a day earlier from Lastation than us, so she didn't witness the incident."  
"Is that so? Who is she?" Sparrow inquired; however, I didn't have to answer him as a sound of the bell rang out, silencing the courtroom and a bailiff in a purple uniform emerged from the side.  
"Please stand up. The trial shall now commence under the name of Her Honor, the Oracle of Planeptune, Lady Histoire with supervision of Lady Purple Heart."

"We're doing a publicity stunt, so listen to the procedures." Raising from my chair, I reprimanded Sparrow, but instead of paying attention to the entrance ceremony, I winked to the rival attorney, positioned behind a mirroring table on the opposite side of the courtroom. Having noticed that, Mitsurugi replied with a spiteful frown and then, returned to listening to Histoire, who after the initial introductions, moved to the first segment of the trial.  
"Now we shall hear the opening statements of both parties. First to state their case is the plaintiff attorney, Ms. Rei Mitsurugi."  
"Thank you, Your Honor." With a professional smile on her face, she bowed to the goddesses, cameras and the rest of gathered, purposefully overlooking me and Sparrow. "From the perspective of my client, the case is simple and once I finish explaining it, the outcome should become apparent. The defendant not only falsely accused my client of a crime, but also publicly humiliated him with the addition of a murder attempt. This event deeply traumatized my client to the point he requires constant psychological treatment of which he is unable to afford. For that reason, my client demands defendant to cover the damages in the amount of fifty thousand credits a month for a period of rehabilitation, which has been estimated to last for minimum of three years. Moreover, we believe that the defendant is a dangerous person who might disrupt the order, thus if he does not possess sufficient assets, we postulate to isolate him by incarceration for a period of 25 years." Having said that, Mitsurugi returned to her place, lowering her head again. Well, she was going all out, wasn't she? Although the terms proposed by her were straight ridiculous, I knew what she aimed to achieve with this madness, she wanted to make sure Sparrow didn't survive this trial unscratched. The defense was naturally going to present the lowest possible punishment, if work on getting the verdict not guilty, therefore, if I were not to have enough proof beyond the reasonable doubt, the judge would be more likely to convict Sparrow using some low-bar option from Mitsurugi's suggestion. As to be expected from the star prosecutor. I betted that she was responsible for the presence of the television crew too, so Histoire and Neptune wouldn't play favorites in front of their people.

"Very well. It is the time for the defense to give us their statement. Mr. Michael Runcorn, you may begin." As Histoire introduced me, a wave of hardly audible whispers went through the spectator's section, however, once I spoke up, they immediately settled down.  
"This trial is a farce. It is a matter of a word against another word as on one hand, one might think that the accusations of the defendant are false, while same might be applied to plaintiff's claims of mental instability. Lies and bribery are not something existing only in fiction, but that is not my main point. You should ask yourself a question – do you know this man?" After a short deliberate pause, I continued. "Some of you, if you fought during the Planeptune siege may recognize him. It is Christopher Sparrow. He was out there, on the front lines, risking his life for the sake of us all. His contribution to the victory is undeniable and documented, I can assure you. I do not deny any of what happened which led to this trial, I only suggest that someone who cares so much about people would not react in such a way if the situation did not demand it. The counterclaim of defense is to defer this trial until actions of the other party are thoroughly investigated. That is all I have to say."  
Easy to predict, my speech caused an uproar, although that was my intention from the start. In one go I managed to shake the board with an unexpected offensive and add some emotions to the broadcast.  
"Objection! That wasn't an opening statement, but sheer slander." Mitsurugi sprung up, slamming the desk with her fingers. Most likely she understood what I was about to do. The law of Planeptune was mainly based on the precedent and nothing even remotely similar to the current trial had been recorded so far.  
"Objection overruled. Defense's claims are within the boundaries of the law as they reflect testimony of the defendant. Borderline, however, there is no foundation to penalize defense." Histoire clarified, smoothly moving to the next point, oblivious to the teeth gritting Mitsurugi. Someone didn't enjoy when things weren't going according to her wish, huh? I couldn't wait to see her despair once I was done with her, I chuckled in thoughts as the judge announced the presenting of plaintiff's witnesses and evidence.

"Your Honor, I would like to offer you the evidence number 1, which is in my opinion the decisive one. Weapons confiscated from the defendant, earlier used to threaten my client – two pistols of an unknown origin, highly plausible to be obtained in an illegal way. Not to mention…" As a plastic bag with two black guns held by Mitsurugi temporarily stole the spotlight, I glanced over to Sparrow. If that was all they had, it meant my troublesome client was still in possession of rather remarkable arsenal of weapons as we speak and yet, he hadn't even tried anything funny. I was genuinely awestruck and thankful, since the effort I put into this trial would surely go to waste if he broke out on his own.  
"Objection. That's just an assumption. Besides, they were manufactured by the defendant to resemble pistols, but if you have done your homework, Ms. Mitsurugi, you would have known that. The design is original and no other such items are to be found in the whole Gamindustri. Ergo, they cannot be classified as illegal firearms, which renders this evidence to an item, as you called it 'used to threaten your client', nothing more than that." I butted in, successfully shutting down my opponent's argument.  
"Objection sustained. This is not a time for farfetched deductions, but for presenting facts and you should be aware of that, Ms. Mitsurugi. If you were that kind, we would like you to proceed."  
"Certainly, Your Honor. Of course, there is still more…"

The longer the trial was taking place, the more I began to ponder whether there was something terribly off with it. By all means, my preparations for this showdown were considerably satisfactory as for the time and court experience I had, however, even with that everything was going too smoothly. I watched tapes from Rei Mitsurugi's most famous cases and comparing to her today's performance, it was hard to believe she was the same person, who used to fiercely prosecute all of these criminals. Her arguments were weak and each of the witnesses she called in after that was worth absolutely nothing. Though they claimed to be eyewitnesses of the whole occurrence, their testimonies were filled with holes or exaggerated half-truths, like if it was the first time they had been heard out. Was that all of she was capable of? If I couldn't see how distressed she was, I would have thought it was just a setup to lure me into a false sense of power, so I would be more prone to mistakes once the main artillery was to be brought to the battlefield. But there was no way Mitsurugi was acting. Her mind wasn't here, although what was she thinking didn't matter as her demise was nearing upon us faster than I anticipated.

"The last chance… If that doesn't break him, I'll lose more than my career…" Though Mitsurugi whispered to herself, breathing heavily, her client answered in a way which caught my interest.  
"Good you know that. Godspeed, star prosecutor. If you win, she will be released." A blackmail? That would clear some of the mysteries, but since I discovered it by lip reading, there was nothing I could formally do, even if I wanted. On the hypothesis that someone influenced my courtroom enemy, I could see two potential scenarios. This trial was meant to be my victory, which would somehow benefit the mastermind or it was for the sake of a personal revenge. In all honesty, I opted for the latter and I didn't like it. No one would use me for own gain, but sadly, I couldn't change anything right now. It was too late as Mitsurugi stood up and raising a piece of paper in front of her, she proclaimed.  
"Your Honor, I would like to present you with evidence 14b." On this signal, the bailiff appeared, passing a copy each for Purple Heart, Histoire and then for me. Well, I was more curious of the consequences of it being brought up than of what this handout had in it, so I locked my sight at plaintiff's table.  
"Your Honor, the evidence 14b includes the results of defendant's blood sample, taken on the day of his arrest. As Your Honor might see, the defendant was under the influence of strong drugs, details listed." Mitsurugi's announcement shook spectators' moods. Any mention of addictive substances was a sure method of making something be perceived as worth contempt as drugs had a special status in Planeptune, though in a negative meaning of this expression. Both people and law hated them, thus the crimes with a connection to them were regularly punished with sentences more or less equal to those for murders.  
"I'd never…" I could feel Sparrow wanted to shout it out.  
"I know. Just wait." I, on the other hand, didn't lose my composure.  
"Excuse me, Ms. Mitsurugi, but are you sure you did not have your cases mixed up? There is absolutely nothing wrong with these results." Histoire's throughout inspection of the paper concluded with something which made everyone gathered, besides me, hold their breath.

"Erm, what? But if you look on this table and these lines…" All of the gazes were focused on Rei Mitsurugi, making her visibly sweat as she frantically attempted to point out the alleged columns.  
"I am sorry, however, there is nothing like that on the copies we acquired. What about you, Mr. Runcorn?"  
"Neither I can find anything wrong with what I received." I confirmed.  
"You! You've somehow manipulated the evidence!" Mitsurugi snapped at me. And she was the one talking? Since she forged the results in the first place, I had Smith, currently disguised as the bailiff, to replace the fake copies with the original ones, as I predicted a possible mistreatment of evidence.  
"No one could have done such a thing. All of the evidence was sealed in a top security safe and only Lady Purple Heart had access to it after yesterday, when both parties registered their materials." Bailiff-Smith hastened with explanations. Though his words were accurate, after the seal was undone, his responsibility was to prepare an adequate amount of copies. It seemed that Histoire and Neptune didn't read it prior to that, allowing Smith to dispose of the fabricated ones without being found out.  
"That is true. Unless you are trying to question my fairness, Ms. Mitsurugi." The goddess tipped the scales, ultimately deciding on the conclusion of this trial, although not of the whole case, as there seemed to be much more to that.

The ruckus from behind was getting out of control.  
"Silence! I will have silence!" In spite of Histoire's orders, which were supported by bailiff's smacking of the wooden hammer, the crowd remained unsettled. Some of the audience were calling out to Mitsurugi, referring to her as a fraud or worse. If it wasn't for a quick reaction of the court police, they would have lynched the famed prosecutor on spot. Speaking of her, Rei Mitsurugi stood completely frozen with a blank expression on her face, while her client was aggressively shaking her shoulder.  
"Back me up if it will be necessary." I commanded Sparrow, snapping him out of confusion. He replied something, but what? It felt as if my body was moving on its own, making me stand up, firmly clutching my index finger, but before I had a chance to do anything else, a sudden scream interrupted.  
"You idiot! Sages won't tolerate failure!" The plaintiff tackled Mitsurugi with a knife, however, a gunshot was faster than the blade. Sparrow's reflexes were truly faster than light's speed. In no time he managed to take out one of his concealed weapons and shot the man's knife out of his grasp.  
"AAAAARGHH! MY ARM!" Using the distraction caused by surely nonlethal wound on his wrist, I stepped between him and Mitsurugi, who froze in sheer terror.  
"Yeah, now you'd prefer him to kill you back then." Raising him by his collar, I returned to the central spot of the courtroom. "Hey, you, television folks, you're going live, am I right?" One of them meekly confirmed with a nod of his head. "Perfectly. There is a message I'd like you to broadcast. Come closer with that machinery." They had no guts to refuse, probably not being the only ones to feel this way as not even goddesses were cutting into my activities. "That should be enough. Okay, here it goes…" Taking a deep breath, I cleared my throat, looking directly into the camera's lens.

"I'm sure that you're watching, so don't switch the channel yet. Those recent incidents. They were all your plotting, weren't they? Existence of some major force behind it was clear from the beginning, however, it took me until today to figure it out. I'm not interested in your ambitions and goals. Who are you doesn't matter as well, but I want you to know that you have crossed the line, making an enemy in me." Saying that, I increased the pressure on man's neck, dropping his limp body on the floor. "That's not a warning. That's a declaration of war." Then, I broke out my finger, causing a pillar of the dark light to appear around me. Emerging out of it, I continued the speech.  
"So, bring the fight to me, I dare you, Sages. I will crush you singlehandedly even if you do not, hence you have got nothing to lose besides your honor, if you still have any. I give you two weeks to mobilize." That should be enough, I thought, destroying the camera with magic and simultaneously, the transmission.


	8. The Seven Sages

**Chapter 7.5. The Seven Sages**

"Well, that didn't go as we planned. Even the name of our organization was leaked by some underling moron." Old man in a striped black suite commented, turning off the screen of the TV.  
"YOU DON'T SAY, BALDY. I TOLD YOU ALL WE NEEDED TO DO, WAS TO SEND ME! THE STRONGEST OF THE SEVEN SAGES!"  
"Ugh, can you lower your voice, you piece of junk? My head is about to explode because of you." A little girl in a pink dress lamented, massaging her temple as if to emphasize her point.  
"IT CAN'T BE HELPED! POWER IS THE ONLY DISTINCTIVE FEATURE OF MY CHARACTER, SO I CAN'T ACT NOT LIKE A MAN!"  
"You're not even a human to begin with. Geez, why do I have to work with morons…" She sighed, burrowing her head in her arms on the large glass table.  
"Shut it, both of you. We're getting nowhere arguing in circles." Though the woman in glasses reprimanded her comrades, she was pretty much ignored, like always, as the old man took the initiative.  
"We've all seen how our plan failed. Michael Runcorn, wasn't it? Does any of you know anything more than we already have regarding this person?" His question caused the witch to perk up in her seat.  
"After I could take a closer look on him, I think he's the one who did it to me. That bastard! I'll never forget him!"  
"Hold on, you think?" A man in a pink mech suit interjected.  
"He was wearing a mask then, but it's gotta be him!"  
"He really did a number on the hag, chu. An eye, a hand, a leg and most of the stomach. If it wasn't for me saving her from the goddesses in the last second, we would have been Six Sages now, chu."  
"Begone, you disgusting rat! I've never needed your aid." She snapped at him.  
"Sureee… Although the loss of the Anticrystal is still on you, chu." The rat shrugged his tiny shoulders.  
"He's right. If it wasn't for your failure, our plot would've come to fruition much earlier than that." The old man crossed his arms, sending her a scornful look.  
"Let the bygones be bygones. Overcome, adapt, improvise. That's a strategy I'd like to suggest."  
"What do you mean by that?"  
"We simply have to remove the obstacle and then, we won." The sound of his clapping was greatly empowered by the metal of his gauntlets.  
"Easily said, harder done. Considering that he defeated the subject 2-JA, he is at least a formidable enemy."  
"Subject 2-JA was an unstable sample, which was our mistake to be released that fast. The loss of it puts us in a predicament if they discover what's inside of it."  
"THEN WE'VE GOTTA ACT FAST. THAT MAKES ME THE MOST APPROPRIATE OF US TO HANDLE HIM." Nevertheless, the first volunteer had been ignored.  
"With this body I'll defeat him for sure. I know him better than any of you together." The witch's eyes sparked with frenzy as she leaned forward.  
"You think so again?"  
"I'll make him suffer twice as much as I did." Having realized witch's resolve, the woman in glasses made up her mind. A vicious smirk formed on her face for a second, although no one noticed it.  
"As you wish. Go. If you're victorious, you'll be handsomely rewarded." Donning a fake smile, she encouraged the witch.  
"Just wait here. I'll bring you his head in no time!" The witch declared, limping on her staff towards the door of the conference room.  
"I'll go too to pick up the scraps of her, chu." The rat tagged along, being silently watched by the rest of Seven Sages.

Once he was sure, the duet departed from the headquarters, the old man sighed.  
"With those two hindrances out of the way, we may finally proceed to the real topic of this meeting…"


End file.
